


Let's Be Kings

by westwoodandridingcrops



Series: Kingdom Come Series [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, descriptions of quasi-incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-04-06 00:50:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4201569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwoodandridingcrops/pseuds/westwoodandridingcrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty are a force. For right or wrong, there's a pull between the two men that could never be denied, a fascination that tips its way into obsession. </p><p>A tale of two years, two lies, and two men.</p><p>"I want to hijack world history with you.<br/>I want to kill monarchs<br/>and infiltrate theocracies<br/>and assault state capitols<br/>and set the captives free.<br/>I want to be the prophet enacting your high-strategy will,<br/>The favored, faithful first general of your imperial army.<br/>The sage philosopher turning hearts towards you,<br/>towards us.<br/>Oh darling, let’s be kings, I’m a killer in a crown." - From S.T. Gibson, Kingdom Come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, and welcome! 
> 
> First off some general notes:  
> 1) This is NOT a WIP. This part of the series is completely done, and will be updating twice weekly. It's weighty, at about 250,000 words.  
> 2) Each chapter will come with its own playlist of songs (via 8tracks) if you like listening while you're reading. :)  
> 3) This is consensual Sheriarty as far as the eye can see, and while other ships are treated with respect and consideration, they're not here. Sorry.  
> 4) This whole fic started as an RP on omegle between two strangers who thought they were halfway across the world from one another, turns out it was right across town. Which is a good thing considering she's my soulmate (and is quite the story for another day....) 
> 
> We so hope you enjoy what is truly just as much our love letter as it is theirs. - V&S
> 
> [Follow us on tumblr. ](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
> An [8tracks playlist ](http://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-chs-1-2) for chapters 1 and 2.

* * *

 

**Nice work on that case in Brussels. Not one of mine, so I can admire the work. JM**

 

Of course it wasn't one of yours. It avoided the dramatic in favor of the pragmatic. SH

 

**And you were actually able to tear it apart. Another good sign it isn't one of mine. JM**

 

A spurious allegation based on wishful thinking. Jealous? SH

 

**Hardly, darling. Most of the time, when a boy's interested, he just calls. You traipse halfway round the world. JM**

 

Well, it's all in response to a complicated, melodramatic plea for attention. It's not my area of expertise, admittedly, but I'd hazard most 'boys' don't do that either. Be useful, won't you? SH

 

**You have to admit it is a rather stunning plea for attention, no? Best you've ever seen I'm sure. And how am I to be of use to you, dear? Bored again already? JM**

 

Somewhat stunning. Usually bored. SH

 

**Dazzling. And of course you're bored. I'd tell you why, but we've exhausted that subject. Clouds and harps and halos will never suit you. JM**

Since it's not yours, take the opportunity to tattle on the competition. SH

 

**Why ever would I do that? It gets them out of the way for me, yes, but gives you less distractions, meaning you're that much closer to trying to tear down my web. JM**

**Make me a good enough offer, however, and I may consider it. JM**

 

I haven't even the faintest notion of what I would have, you would want, and I'd be willing to give. SH

 

**There are a few things that come to mind, I'm sure. JM**

 

Please. Everything always comes to mind. The question remains of my willingness to give them. SH

 

**And what are you willing to give, Sherlock Holmes? JM**

 

To you? Very, very little. Make me an offer. You're plainly bored yourself and are in the process of boring me, too. SH

 

**Why would I make you an offer for something you ultimately want from me? On second thought, perhaps the white robes and heavenly choir are more your speed, Sherlock. JM**

 

Come now, you made yourself manifest to me. I don't need this information, but you do seem desperate for company. SH

 

**Desperate? Please. I'm sure I could find all the company I wanted. You're just the only one who isn't an idiot. But you're right. I am bored. Paris is so boring in the Spring. JM**

 

Ah, a location. John wouldn't like it. SH

 

**Oh no, I'm sure this is exactly the kind of place John Watson likes in his woolly jumper clad heart of hearts. Don't you ever get bored with it all? It's so domestic, so tedious. JM**

 

He'd love Paris, I'm sure. I meant, he wouldn't like me meeting you there. SH

 

**Good. Don't bring him along, then. JM**

 

You're not paying attention. Like I said, the information would be useful, not vital. Why should I go? There’s always another case here in London. SH

 

**What if I had other, more interesting information? JM**

 

Then, I suppose I'd be interested. SH

 

**Your man in Brussels isn't really who you need to go after. It was a clever bit of work, I'll grant you, but the epicenter of that enterprise is in Paris. JM**

 

Thank you. Marginally interesting, as ever, and all I really wanted to know. SH

 

**It's more interesting how much money competitors are willing to pay when they realize I know ways to beat you. JM**

 

Most interesting, I'm sure, when they realize you don't. SH

 

**Naturally. But it's all about perceptions, darling. Smoke and mirrors. What's truly fantastic? Now I have their money, you'll track them down, and I'll have one less enemy. JM**

 

Gratifying to hear of your faith in my abilities. More gratifying to hear you admit you don't know how to win against me. SH

[delayed] What do you tell them? SH

 

**The easiest way to blind your opponent is not, contrary to popular opinion and questionable business practice, with sulfuric acid, but rather honey. JM**

 

Meaning? SH

 

**Oh, this and that. Ways to throw you off the scent, ways to make you stop in your tracks. The psychology of Sherlock Holmes. JM**

 

I think I startled him, he doesn't hear me laugh often. 'Ways to throw me off the scent.' SH

 

**It's much easier to let your ego knock you out, Sherlock. You are rather like a dog after a bone when you're after something. JM**

 

A poorly chosen metaphor, even for you. Hounds are notoriously difficult to throw off scents. These methods you sell, explain. SH

 

**I didn't say it wasn’t difficult. I said it could be done. Pay attention. If it were easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation, mainly because you'd already be long since dead. Explain? Not on your life, Sherlock. JM**

 

Not even on a visit to Paris in the spring? SH

 

**As tempting as it is, no. But just barely. JM**

Do be sportsmanlike. I'll let you fly me out yourself. SH

 

**That would be enormously stupid of you, wouldn’t it? Aren’t you afraid you’d never find your way back to London and the insufferable quiet of Baker Street if you come and meet with big, bad Moriarty? JM**

Rather, it's stupid of you to think I'd make the offer if I wasn't sure I would come home to dull domesticity. SH

 

**Do you ever get tired of walking the tightrope, Sherlock? JM**

 

You know the answer to that. It'd be the same one you'd give. SH

 

**Hmm, but I chose a side. Firmly. You flounder. One moment you want tea and fires and coziness, the next you're willing and ready for springtime in Paris. Must get old. JM**

Now I know you're jealous. SH

 

**Oh? JM**

 

Why, of course. Obvious, isn't it? It is all tea kettles and throw pillows in Baker Street. But, of course, Baker Street is where I am. SH

 

**And, in half a heartbeat I could have you here. JM**

 

You could. If you weren't frightened of the price to get me there. In the meantime, it's chamomile today. Perhaps I'll ask for honey to go with it. SH

 

**Oh, you should, Sherlock. Please do. Perhaps with enough of it, you'll finally be able to convince yourself that it's enough for you. We both know that isn't really true now, is it? JM**

 

I can't imagine the brandy you're most likely nursing is enough for you, either. Otherwise, we wouldn't be haggling over allowing you to buy me dinner. SH

 

**Your deductions are always marvelous, dear. And always a bit off the mark. I'm Irish. It's always and ever going to be whiskey. And, I'm really not interested in dinner. JM**

 

Oh, come. You finally have something mildly intriguing. Suddenly wanting to forfeit? SH

 

**Oh, no, Sherlock. As always you misunderstand. Why does anyone care about dinner when there can be dessert? JM**

**Decadent, over the top, last thing in your mouth. Much better than humdrum dinner. JM**

 

For God's sake, man. SH

 

**You really can be a stick in the mud. Your Mycroft is showing. JM**

 

He'll be pleased to hear you think so, I'm sure. Trite of you to resort to plagiarizing the Woman, don't you think? SH

 

**Irene? She was always interested in dinner. Boring. More boring when she failed to realize your complete and total disinterest. JM**

**This is neither dinner nor disinteresting. JM**

 

The latter assertion is questionable. Are you sending for me or not? Apparently, there's some Bond movie on tonight. SH

 

**Hardly. Coy is a difficult sell for you. JM**

**Ugh, really? Come to Paris. I'm sure I can promise you a better plot than that drivel. JM**

 

[delayed] When? SH

 

**There's a jet on standby. Give them your name and get on. JM**

 

And, when can I expect to be home? SH

 

**Whenever you want to be. I'm not your keeper. On that note, do leave your keeper behind. You're much more fun without him. JM**

 

Oh, that would be unsportsmanlike, indeed. The identity and particulars of one John Watson wouldn't just happen to be among the tidbits you sell, would it? SH

 

**No. He's my little secret because he's your little secret. I don't sell your actual pressure points. I keep those to myself. JM**

 

I'm hardly going if there's even a suspicion I might find the flat empty when I come home. SH

 

**Do calm down, Sherlock. Your John will be just as safe as he ever is. JM**

 

Hm, promise? SH

 

**Pinkie swear. JM**

 

[hours later] You don't come from wealth, do you? SH

 

**Why do you ask? JM**

Your jet is gaudy. SH

 

**I'm an Irish orphan. Of course I don't come from wealth, but I'm sorry you think so. Perhaps next time you can take yours... JM**

 

That isn't the revelation at the end of it all, is it? Some sort of vendetta against the English middle class. That may even be too pedestrian for you. SH

 

**Who gives a fuck about the English middle class? Even they don't. Too occupied with their betters and feeling vaguely superior over those worse off. JM**

**For example, pointing out the gaudiness of someone's jet because, even if they have more money than you, they don't have the same caliber of restraint and "good breeding." Helps those who are marginally well-to-do feel better about not having the gumption to be self-created. JM**

 

Heavens. Touched a nerve. SH

 

**It you touched a nerve you'd know, sweetheart. The plane would be going down instead of up. JM**

 

Why do you do that? SH

 

**Do what? JM**

 

Call me names. It's unceasing. SH

 

**Why not? JM**

 

No reason. It's just particular to you when speaking particularly to me. SH

 

**I think I may do it to be ironic more than anything. Like the opposite of tugging the girl's braid at school. You want to kill me, I want to kill you. I'll call you darling instead. JM**

 

You miscalculate. I don't want to kill you. SH

 

**Oh, is it for some tedious reason about the morality of murder? If so, spare me the details. JM**

 

John wouldn't like it. SH

 

**John Watson would have my head on a spike. John Watson may very well attempt to put my head on a spike after this. JM**

 

God help you, then. Though the preponderance of evidence suggests he won't. SH

 

**Why do you think that? JM**

 

Why do I think that a fictional construct, fantasy of the desperate, opiate of the masses and all that won't help you? SH

 

**Oh, thought you were talking about John, not God. They are rather similar in your book though, so it could have very well been either. JM**

**John Watson doesn't scare me. Men like him are brilliant and good and fabulous. And they're the ones who fill trenches and body bags at the sake of honor. Respectable? Yes. But so easy to eliminate. JM**

Similar? It's so easy you haven't done it. SH

 

**John Watson could murder a village in cold blood and you'd wonder what they did to wrong him. JM**

**I haven't done it because it hasn't been necessary. JM**

 

I'd be interested in knowing when it will become necessary, of course. SH

 

**I will try to let you know where I have it penciled in to the five year plan. JM**

 

Five years? Is that another promise? SH

Touching down. Tell me what you've penciled in for today. SH

 

**No. That's more sarcasm. I hadn't penciled in anything particularly. I'm at the hotel now. I'm sure you'll find me. JM**

 

What, no gaudy limousine. I'm both pleasantly surprised and disappointed. SH

 

**Your worst middle-class, middle-age Mycroft is wholly on display now. JM**

 

Do excuse me. The man raised me, I'm sure he mentioned. SH

 

**And, we can't shake those firm, British sensibilities. You lot lost all the magic. JM**

 

I fear I have several bad influences on the tedious and British front. SH

Speaking of which, it's tedious to send me on yet another chase to find you. SH

 

**I can think of many of such bad influences… It shouldn't be hard to deduce. I'm in Paris and I'm a gaudy, over the top foreigner. Where would I be staying? JM**

  
Well, I'm smoking outside the Palais Royal. If this is sufficiently garish, do come down. SH   


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, we're out of text land. Forever, we pinky swear it. - V&S
> 
> [Tumblr.](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-chs-1-2) (Same from last chapter).
> 
> Translations for any foreign phrases are in the end notes.

A few minutes later, Jim strolled out of the front doors of the hotel and spotted Sherlock leaning against the building to the side. He drew a cigarette of his own before plucking Sherlock's from his mouth and lighting his own with the burning ember.

 

"Already indulging in forbidden habits, Sherlock. Do please continue. It adds to the promise of the trip," Jim said, handing Sherlock his cigarette back. Jim turned to face the city. "It's ghastly. Too many soft colors and soft words," he remarked.

 

Sherlock caught himself rearing back very slightly when the cigarette was taken from him and remained serious as it was handed back. "It's too old to not have it's own seedy underbelly of sorts. Though, there is no Parisian Holmes or Moriarty that I've become aware of, so perhaps it is boring all the way down." He smirked slightly and chuckled softly, though he didn't explain why. He merely looked out in the direction the other man faced and continued dragging on the cigarette.

 

"It does if you know where to look, and if you're looking for the Parisian Moriarty, well, you've found him,” Jim retorted sharply. It was always difficult to tell with Sherlock what laughter was genuine and what was mocking. “So, where would you like to start, Sherlock?" He asked, his eyes never leaving the cityscape.

 

It was Sherlock’s turn, then, to look off into the distance. He narrowed his eyes as he did so and answered. "You promised me insider information on your trade secrets. Of course I came when the topic of conversation proved to be me." He brought his gaze back down and very seriously, at least externally, said, "Your reputation favors you. Even I find myself forgetting how short you are until you make it obvious how much you have to reach up to snatch at my cigarette."

 

Jim rolled his eyes. "Dull. Short jokes are beneath you," he drawled. "I'm quite happy to be small and slight. No one ever suspects a small man of big things. Makes my job so much easier to be unassuming." He thought for a moment before continuing. “Is that the only reason you came, Sherlock? You could have just waited for me to come back to London."

 

Sherlock shrugged. Half by nature and half by design, he'd taken the opposite tack in life, being largely easy to spot wherever he went unless he was in the active process of concealing his identity. "Another forbidden habit at Baker Street, I suppose." He tried to imagine John’s face if he so much as implied a dig at his stature. He shook off the mental image as he dragged on the cigarette, reaching its halfway point. "London would have been more convenient, true, but hardly a place to meet in private. Besides, despite how terribly upper middle class I am, I'm not terribly acquainted with Paris,” he said by way of extremely flimsy excuse.

 

"Tell me. What is allowed at Baker Street? The place sounds like Catholic school," Jim stated, exhaling smoke into the air above them. Jim studied Sherlock as he spoke. If they had wanted to meet privately in London there were plenty of places where it could be done. Places where John Watson and Sebastian Moran couldn't follow. Places where Mycroft couldn't wedge his nose. "Whatever you need to tell yourself to keep you from feeling guilty, darling. What did you tell our dear Dr. Watson, anyway? Surely, he was suspicious," Jim asked.

 

"I wouldn't know what Catholic school is like,” Sherlock dismissed.“Suspicious? No. Concerned that he couldn't come is more like it. He thinks Mycroft's sent for me. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and all." He puffed on the cigarette again and briefly paused the tense and false playfulness between them. "I left him unaware of my destination but terribly well-guarded, Jim. No bomb-studded parkas this time, if you please," he bluffed. Of course, he’d not told Mycroft, so the only people who could have possibly guarded John were unaware of any danger at all.  He was comfortable risking the trip himself, less comfortable admitting that this meant that John too was unprotected.

 

"Well, it'll hardly be necessary this time, don't you think? The only reason I bothered with John was to get to you, and here you are," he said with a wave of his hands. He snuffed out his cigarette before putting his hands in his pockets and walking away. "Coming? Do try to keep up, Sherlock," he called over his shoulder as he walked down the avenue. "You want to see the soft, Parisian underbelly? Right this way."

 

Seeing the sense in Jim’s dismissal of his concern, he turned to follow and easily caught up to him with long strides. "The soft Parisian underbelly, your dirty laundry on me, and then my man from Brussels. Should be a diverting enough agenda for the trip." He mused as he put out his cigarette in view of the car awaiting them. "I have reached my faux-xenophobic quota for the day, else I might have pointed out that a man of your upbringing has both a familiarity and aversion to all things Catholic, I'm sure."

 

"Mm, I'm glad all that British restraint and Anglican priggishness held your tongue then," Jim remarked flippantly. “Here you are casting aspersions when your own church was founded on the back of a whore.” He led them to the waiting car and opened the door, pointing his head at the open space. "Get in." As soon as they were situated, he pulled out his phone and began emailing. Christ, so many clients. He sighed, looking out of the tinted window. "We'll go visit the competition's side of the underbelly, I'll tell you all about your man from Brussels and some of the laundry, yes. Though, I've always found it much more enjoyable to make dirty laundry than to air it." He arched an eyebrow, glancing back in Sherlock’s direction.

 

"Ha." Sherlock said, drily. " 'My' church? Indeed. I'm a public school boy. You can spare me the history lecture," he scoffed. He entered the car somewhat skeptically, but assumed that ending him in a car and bundling his corpse off would not suit Jim's normal modus operandi. He didn't try to conceal his eyes roving over Jim thoroughly as well as the interior of the car for whatever deduction he might make. Jim had not been careless and there was not much obvious evidence. Still, it occupied him while Jim clicked away on his phone, reminiscent of how Sherlock himself had often been chided for the same by John. "I do not come for 'some.' You said yourself, I'm rarely content with less than all or none." He stared out of the opposite window and paraphrased absently, apropos of their conversation on religion, "Hot or cold. Warm, I will spew from my mouth."

 

"Some is always better than none at all, Sherlock," Jim replied, his lips curling into a wicked smile. "And you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked," he continued. "Catholic school was good for a thing or two. You'll take what you get, I imagine," he shrugged. He leaned back, pocketing his phone. "So what did you deduce while I was so rudely occupied with my life's work? I assure you, I just hired the car, so it's likely much more likely to be up to your standards of sensibility since my jet wasn’t up to snuff." Jim pulled a face at the thought. "Sensibility and pragmatism don't look good on you, by the way. Too ordinary. Doesn't suit you."

 

"I'm not any of those things,” he countered the quote. He scanned again and breathed in, subconsciously before he quickly rattled off. "Previous occupant had a small dog with her. Yappy breed. Appalling. The fact that I can tell that implies that the company that rented you the car is less _gaudy_ than you might have rented. Probably an upper scale selection of a moderate-scale rental place, frequented by those wishing to appear well-to-do on the relatively cheap. Certainly, not actually luxurious, not like the hotel you chose, or the jet. Makes sense to not stand out with too flashy a car." He shrugged it all off as if to say it was nothing and then paused and sighed, staring out the window again. "You only spent vulgar amounts of money on where you assume I'd be spending most of my time."

 

"First part of the text implies that you wouldn't know even if you were," Jim retorted. He listened to Sherlock’s lightning quick deductions, his mouth barely keeping pace with his mind. After he was good and finished, Jim grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Impressive," he responded. "Not necessarily correct, but you had limited information to work with. I own the jet, I spent money on it because _I_ would be spending a lot of time in it. The car, you're mostly correct about. Where we're going, something flashy would stand out. Best not to just now. Even if we were going to spend a large amount of time in it, I wouldn't have changed it. The hotel? One-hundred percent correct. Some types of dirty laundry are better made when the sheets are above 300 thread count," he leered.

 

He frowned slightly. He was annoyed he’d missed something and missed it in Jim’s presence, to boot. His annoyance with himself grew as Jim pointed out what was right and wrong with his deductions; however, it was suddenly replaced with a vague sensation of disgust mixed with apprehension. If he'd allowed himself to, he might have identified the irrational desire to bolt out of self-preservation. But he'd never acknowledge that the notion of what he'd be doing on expensive sheets discomfited him profoundly, opting instead to quickly and neatly tamp his apprehension down. Obviously, it was attributable to the fact that it was this man making the insinuation and not to any issue with the concept in general. Obviously. Determined to show himself unperturbed, he swallowed and curled his lip slightly. "Vulgar,” he accused. "Beneath you," he insulted, before immediately and privately regretting his choice of words.

 

"Honestly, darling, I did think it would rather be the other way 'round.” Jim loosed a snort of laughter, “but if you prefer...” There was a merry twinkle in his eyes at Sherlock’s disquiet. "So that's it, then. You think I'm incredibly vulgar and gaudy, and I think you are rather confined and stuffy. And people say we're the same? Hardly.”

 

"You have me confused with my brother,” Sherlock scoffed, and arched his brow. “Regardless, you prefer me this way. If I play the straight man, you can be flamboyant and ostentatious. I'm both audience and foil. I know the feeling," he admitted. He’d played the role himself more than once over the years at crime scenes, the Yard, and Baker Street. Come to think of it, perhaps he’d played the role more often than he did not.

 

"Mmm, I do like to cause a scene. Never saw the point of walking in a room and not owning it," Jim considered.

 

Sherlock nodded at Jim’s concession of the point and continued, "I'm never quite so overwrought as with good old, staid John by my side or, better yet, the Queen himself, my big brother."

 

Jim couldn’t help but laugh at the image. Mycroft certainly could give Old Lizzy a run for her money. "Old, staid John? My, my, you're much less deferential when he's not here. Then again, when the mother hen is away," he smirked.

 

"Well," Sherlock attempted to explain a touch hurriedly "He _is_ older, and he is rather a steadying force. Somewhat. Though not as boring as you'd think." It hadn't been said as an insult, though now it sounded like it might have been something someone would say to be insulting. Now, he felt the need to defend John the slight he’d heard in his own sentence . "It's what he likes to make people believe," he shrugged.  

 

Jim rolled his eyes. Let Sherlock have his illusions. They, like John, were ultimately harmless. Sometimes he wondered about Sherlock and John. They hardly made any sense at all. John was contained, rigid, _ethical_. Sherlock? None of that made sense for him. "But why be steadied at all, Sherlock? Why do you do it? You don't believe in a higher power, well other than yourself and possibly the good doctor, so why bother? It all seems rather boring."

 

He had no true answer, and honestly did not know what sort of person he’d currently be had it not been for John's influence. He had hardly been given to a great deal of criminal activity before John and/or Jim but largely because few things moved him to the state that a crime of passion required and committing a crime in cold blood held little interest for him. Of course, he’d never had any compunction about criminal activity in pursuit of those things which he _had_ wanted. Still, that provided little in the way of an answer to Jim’s question. Rather than delve more deeply into something that he had no way to readily answer, he turned his attention to why Jim asked in the first place. “Why should it matter to you? Concerned about what might happen if I weren’t? Steadied?”

 

Jim waved his hand, “Don’t be dull, Sherlock. Obviously not.” He chuckled. The idea was laughable. He leaned forward slightly and continued. "No, what I want to know is why you’re on the side of the angels to begin with. Whatever is the point of being good if there's no reward for it? Why waste the time when you can take and do as you please?" Jim asked. "It can't be because you're worried about being punished. I've been doing this my whole life and I'm, frankly, above the law in many respects. You're brilliant enough to do the same, why don't you? Haven't you ever been curious what lurks on the other side of the veil? You must admit you are fascinated by my work, how it is what I do. So, why not, Sherlock?"

 

In truth, he didn't know. Perhaps he associated being on the wrong side of the law with the days of his youth when he wasted his potential. Perhaps, initially being good at what he did had given him a freedom to pursue his craft and solve his brand of puzzle in relative peace. But it wasn't as though Jim's assertions were wrong. He broke the law routinely in the name of his pursuits, he could easily do it for more obvious personal gain. He might be freer to do it than even this man, the question of who exactly was more talented having been yet unresolved ( though Sherlock came down in his own favor). Surely, Mycroft would take less stringent measures against him if he were to occupy Moriarty's place. He wasn't going to admit he'd never entertained the question and its implications seriously, though, so he transgressed the agreement that had likely been made at the car's rental and lit a cigarette. "Pointless speculation. You have a side job selling the psychology of Sherlock Holmes. You tell me."

 

Jim sat back, smirking. This would be entertaining. Sherlock spent so much time piecing together people that he never realized that others might be able to do the same to him. "Same reasons you quit shooting up: you're scared," he said lightly, not looking at Sherlock. "Eventually, you stopped using drugs because you finally realized what they were really doing to your brain, not just making it go quiet, but harming it. Your most prized possession. For the same reasons, you're scared to do what I do. Not because it would injure you, but because, just like the drugs, you're afraid you'd take it too far--too hard, too fast, too deep-- and wake up one day and not be able to recognize yourself, not be able to stop. In short, _the fear of the loss of control_ ," Jim emphasized, drawing the words out. Sherlock was still at first, not looking at Jim as he continued, but then gave himself away with a single nod as Jim progressed in his diatribe. "Your job is to deduce, Sherlock. Deductive reasoning. Mine's always been the reverse. Inductive reasoning. I'm quite good," he remarked, leaning back again. "Just remember, Sherlock Holmes, only one of us gets to live like a pirate," he jabbed, knowing the buttons to press and how to press them.   

 

Well, of course. He felt something akin to what John must feel, finding a leap of logic inscrutable until it was plainly laid out for him, at which point it seemed embarrassingly obvious. The "too hard, too fast, too deep," comment was not lost on him and he let a scowl settle on his face. He'd not play that way, he might trade barbs and pretend to have contempt for Jim’s background if it served to needle him, but he tried to make it clear that should the game stray in that direction, he would not participate. He'd be neither amused nor amusing. "No, indeed." He said, relaxing and smirking because obviously, he'd not grant Moriarty the victory in his inductions after being critiqued on his own deductions, " _I_ don't make it a habit to dabble in pop psychology and unsubstantiated, unfalsifiable data. That, I leave to be your purview, entirely." He made mental note of the fact that Moriarty was either privy to or had guessed at his own childhood obsession and made a little bow with his head, "The other of us 'gets' to live like a privateer and not hang."

 

"Darling, I'm in no danger of hanging. Besides, pirates are by their very nature gaudy, no?" Jim asked, tilting his head sideways. "It may feel nice to be good on occasion, but it's so good to be bad," he crooned. Jim smirked at his comment about his analysis. "It's not unverifiable when I'm in front of you and you look like you've simultaneously swallowed a cactus and had an orgasm," he quipped. "Thank you for verifying my theory for me. It'll sell well if I choose to divulge it." Perhaps some buyer or another would be interested, but likely, Jim would keep this tidbit to himself. After all, what better way to know he was the one trying to lead Sherlock Holmes down the garden path. Heaven knows what lay at the other side, but Jim was dying to find out.

 

Sherlock made a sound halfway between a scoff and a repressed burst of laughter. "There can't _really_ be people so invested in playing games with me that they would be willing to pay for something like _that_ , can they?" He knew too well that following rules could be chafing. The universe tended towards entropy.  It was pointless to turn the question on its head to ask why, if indeed, they were so similar, Jim had not become someone who at least outwardly attempted to play by the rules. "Really what you've revealed is that you relish people paying you to talk about me. But if you call, and text, and invite me out on holiday, why then, kill me? Merely because I'm too good at being in your way? That seems boring and too lazy for you. It's hardly self-preservation, I'm in the car with you and you'd not have allowed me along if you felt as though I might ever do something like tell on you. No..." he narrowed his eyes, considering him. "Am I a puzzle? A challenge? You clearly wouldn't have me shot in a car somewhere, you'd like it to be a grand gesture, my death. You care, but not enough to not send people on chases after me." He brought the cigarette to his lips but did not move his gaze. "Suppose you miscalculated someone, underestimated them and I turned up in the Thames, what then?" He punctuated the statement with an ironic show of 'realizing how rude he'd been' and offered the cigarettes to Jim.

 

Jim smiled coyly. "People are stupid and they pay me ridiculous sums of money to go into their operations and tell them just how stupid they are. I could sell them Thames water like snake oil and they'd buy it." Jim took the offered pack of cigarettes and slid one out. He pulled out a heavy, silver flint lighter to light it and flicked the lid shut before handing the package back to Sherlock. "I suppose at one point in time I thought you were going to be my masterpiece. I thought I'd toy with you for a while, lead you down a path happily to your death, and completely and utterly annihilate everything and everyone you ever denied you cared about. I wasn't just going to burn the heart out of you, Sherlock. I was going to consume you." What had changed? What had made Jim abort the plan? It was a question he wasn't sure he could answer. "But then, I decided, the world would be rather boring without you in it. You have to admit that runs both ways. Nearly fifty percent of your business comes from the fringes of my network. Without it, you'd swallow the end of a gun barrel or shoot up in a blaze of glory within a few months." He pulled a drag off the cigarette, savoring it. "Of course I don't give them anything that would actually get you caught. That's against my interests. Instead, I show them ways to avoid you altogether. Red herrings you'll like, distractions you notice."

 

And, Sherlock had noticed. He had pieced it together. Moriarty’s actions themselves  were either eventually deduced with effort and diligence--and, appreciated, truth be told-- or initially transparent, when his advice was not followed thoroughly. Sherlock could tell. It was a break from the sort of criminal that he occupied himself with only during extreme bouts of boredom. "You flatter yourself." He shrugged, "I might miss you initially, I grant. But, as you would say, life would go on, with Bond movies and jumpers and the occasional 'independent contractor,' of sorts. I might eventually retire one day." He said, fooling absolutely no one, not even himself. "You, on the other hand, you specifically altered the plan where you end in a world without me in it. Of course, it was never going to work. Any fool would see that. Men like us, we don't create _masterpieces_. The second you'd played the last note or made the last brushstroke, you'd want to start work on something grander still. You'd be working with highly limited materials, however, so you eventually caught up with the realization. What then, is the master plan now?"

 

Jim laughed deeply. "Oh, that's a lovely image. You in the English countryside somewhere with the unrequitedly-in-love John Watson, spending your golden years in a sea of animal textiles and terrible movies." There had to be more out there for the likes of him and Sherlock. They were far too clever to grow old. Surely the rules and laws of nature understood that. "I'm not saying you'd do it over me, idiot, but you'd miss the work. You'd miss that steady stream of diversion it gives you.

 

“Regardless of what you say, Sherlock Holmes, your brain cannot sustain itself on John. It might try, give it an honest go of things, but it would fall to pieces and you know it. The masterpiece? Perhaps it is foolish, I'm allowed to be foolish, you see. I'm not the one parading around as an unfeeling automaton. I can make decisions based on passions and pleasures. I can be an artist. But my master plan now? _C'est la vie_ , I suppose. Up in the air. Chaotic. Just the way I like it." They were drawing close to the area they needed to be. Soon he would be leading the hound to the foxes.

C'est la vie

 

“You don't give him enough credit." Sherlock objected, but did not explain which assertion he felt was an underestimation of his associate. He'd never really thought of himself as ever becoming an old man. Mycroft, definitely. John? He would be right at home with retirement. Himself? He'd never granted that he might survive that long, assuming he'd either exist as he was or not at all. "Ah." He felt a smile begin, small but earnest, at the opportunity to tease once more. " _Alors vous_ _parlez_ _français_?" He smirked and allowed himself a chuckle. He wasn't really patriotic at all, was far too rational to look down on a given nationality for no reason, and knew that education proved nothing. Still, he did enjoy lording it, anything, really, over Jim, though.  " _Bien sûr, vous n'avez pas_."

 

"No, I give him all the credit he deserves and nothing more or less than that. He's a good man. Better than I can say about either of us." John Watson was worth ten of either of them to the rest of the world, but to Jim, he was tedious. If Sherlock was on the side of the angels, John was Gabriel himself. How insipid. Sherlock was smiling now, condescending in every language it would seem. " _Bien sûr, je parle français, mon chéri. Je suis le Moriarty français, après tout, no_?" Jim offered back in a delicate Parisian accent. Then, shifting into his own native tongue, he continued. " _Mar sin, álainn, ach chomh sotalach_ ," he volleyed, the Gaelic pouring from his mouth in a lilting melody as he grinned salaciously.

 

The condescension hadn't had time to fade from Sherlock’s expression when Jim answered him fluently. However, when he began speaking in Gaelic, Sherlock furrowed his brow in surprise. "Goodness, we _are_ terribly Irish, aren't we?" He tried to play the suggestive statement off dismissively. After all, perhaps he missed the meaning of the words themselves but the nature of the grin couldn't elude him. "It doesn't get you anywhere, you know." He rolled his eyes at Jim. "It got Irene nowhere and she meant it in earnest. It's just juvenile teasing with you. You make a fool of yourself, giggling at anything that sounds remotely sexual," He said, referring to what was likely some more innuendo that he'd clearly not be able to understand, "... _Dear_."

 

Jim frowned for a moment, leaning forward slightly and meeting Sherlock's light gaze. "Whoever said I wasn't serious, Sherlock? Do you think I whisk everyone off to Paris who's intrigued by me? And on that note, I have advantages Irene didn't. Mainly, the fact that I'm not disinteresting to you in _any_ sense of the word. To prove my point, _mo chroi_ , it didn't manage to get Irene anywhere, and yet, here you are in Paris under the guise of seeking information you could have gotten from me in less than 48 hours over tea and Mrs. Hudson's scones." He paused. "The detective doth protest too much, methinks," he paraphrased.

 

"Well, I'm apparently _bored_  at Baker Street. So, you've said to the point of exhaustion." He stiffened ever so slightly and leaned back and away from Jim even more slightly. He metaphorically reared back entirely from the teasing rhythm they'd fallen into. He set his jaw until he spoke, though, unwilling to show anything which might attract more attention to his distaste for this particular topic. "I don't share your weakness in this, any of you. Yes, you're something of a novelty and not boring. Occasionally." He spat out, grown serious, almost angry. "For someone who crows over how _well_ they know me, you misjudge my intentions if you think I have the same unfortunate tendencies the rest of the human race does, wherein they use a distinctly non-cerebral portion of their anatomy to think." He stopped then, determined to ride the rest of the way in silence until they arrived to where he might actually do some _work_.

  
Jim leaned back in his seat and sighed. "Have it your way then, Sherlock. But you do have those tendencies, you're more a monk than a eunuch." He said nothing more and several minutes later they were outside of the warehouses. "Do try to look less..." He searched for the word, "...you, I suppose. Follow my lead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> C'est la vie - Such is life  
> Alors vous parlez français? - So you speak French?   
> Bien sûr, vous n'avez pas - Of course you don't  
> Bien sûr, je parle français, mon chéri. Je suis le Moriarty français, après tout, no? - Of course, I speak French, darling. I am the French Moriarty, after all, no?  
> Mar sin, álainn, ach chomh sotalach - So beautiful, but so arrogant.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's have dinner....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow us on tumblr. ](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Here's the [8tracks playlist ](https://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-chapter-3/) for chapter 3. You'll notice (and maybe appreciate, maybe not) the food theme for this chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy! - V&S

Jim had asked him to look ‘less himself’, and that Sherlock could do even without the odd bits of clothes he collected every so often. He adopted a pose, still straight-backed but not stiff. A man, relaxed in the knowledge of his own authority. He dialed down condescension, an expression that would not be welcome among men at least trying to pretend to be business partners. Polite interest, more like, with a hint of being up to something bigger so as to encourage respect. Really, he channeled Mycroft. Smug, but not abrasively so. Polite, but clearly falsely, though the truth that lay beneath at all times, impossible to discern. Cold, yet not off-puttingly so. Intelligent, but not in a threatening way until it became of use; deliberate, methodical. But if Sherlock was going to fade into the background and observe, he could not help but observe the change that came over Jim first.

Jim slipped into _his_ mask without even consciously thinking about it. It was easier, perhaps, to play this part than it had ever been to be himself. His eyes became more focused, his face twisting itself into a sneering concentration. He moved more quickly, always, always with a purpose, a goal in mind. He opened the car door and didn’t look back. He might have treated Sherlock like a human being when alone but not now, not when he was meant to be Moriarty.

“How are the arms shipments coming? I can’t wait forever while you get your house in order. You need me and I need your guns. Tell the Chinese you won’t fuck with them if they continue. Tell them I’ll lose my temper with them.” He smiled wolfishly at the idea, a glint of something hard and lethal in his eyes. The man’s eyes widened slightly before he scampered off, and another one took his place.

“I need to speak to Beaulieu immediately,” he stated, switching effortlessly to German. “I have news for him. Do not let me wait.” The man nodded once and went to get Beaulieu as requested.

A few moments later, a tall, elegant man with white hair approached and Jim greeted him.

“Ah, Mr. Moriarty,” he greeted, in French.

“Mr. Beaulieu, I must admit this is quite the upgrade from the last time we met,” he observed looking around the large space.

“Ah, well. Business is good,” Beaulieu replied, shrugging his shoulders with a nonchalance only the French could master. He smiled weakly and then his eyes fixed on Sherlock. For a moment, Jim thought he might recognize him, but Jim brushed him off.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s an associate from Manchester. Doesn’t understand a word of French, I can assure you.”

From this location, Beaulieu trafficked hundreds of people, a practice in which Jim did not dabble. Along with this, he moved heavy amounts of cocaine and vast quantities of American army-grade weapons-- two areas which very much held Jim’s interest. After much talking, he looked over at Sherlock who had wandered off after a while observing, very covertly, the space itself.

Jim needed a cover, and decided to launch into the information he knew about a third competitor. The man was grasping, greedy, _dirty_ , the type of man the prim and proper Beaulieu despised out of principle. Jim liked the man, himself. He was a self-starter, born from nothing, scrappy, but he was a common enemy, and as of late more and more in Jim’s way. He couldn’t have that. And, neither could Beaulieu.

“I’ll handle him myself,” Beaulieu assured.

“See that you do. He’s trouble.” There was hardly anyone Jim liked more than money, after all.

With that it was time to go. Sherlock gave a brief nod and Jim made his goodbyes. The whole thing had taken nearly an hour.

As they slid back into the car, Jim let Moriarty fall away and addressed Sherlock now in English. "He's your actual man. Not the guy in Brussels. He's the one you should concern yourself with."

For his part, as he milled about at Jim’s side in the warehouse, Sherlock had projected equality with Moriarty, though not a partnership, as it would look one-sided and desperate to attempt to imply an allegiance with this man while he was in his own pose. He had taken advantage of the restrained command that Moriarty (not Jim, now. He would never call him Moriarty again when they were alone, not after having seen that it was as much an act as the detective in the funny hat was), that _Jim_ had in the room to wander and take careful mental notes of both room and occupants. Whether supporting cartels, providing the means to arm insurgents (and to shoot army doctors through the shoulder and the career, he noted uselessly before quickly shaking off the thought) or trading in humans, they were all disgusting, bestial enterprises masquerading as civilization.

Sherlock felt like a child in a candy store behind the borrowed Iceman facade. Jim was right, of course, the slithering individual he’d first mentioned was the big fish in all this. How neatly Jim had ordered the appropriately sobriqueted Beaulieu to dispense with a competitor while neatly turning him over to Sherlock in the same breath also did not escape his notice. It was exactly the type of craftsmanship, both in artistry and trickery, that Sherlock couldn’t help but admire, and he couldn’t resist paying him the compliment.

"Done and done. The stage lost an actor in you, Jim."

Jim laughed, "I could say the same. for a moment I'd thought your hair had turned red and then promptly fallen off the top of your head. An umbrella wouldn't have gone amiss either," he observed, grinning.

"Not to mention, put on weight, thank you. That is another _sizable_ difference between us," he said, dropping the serious expression he'd put on in favor of a smirk as mischievous as Jim's.

"So much of what you and I do is smoke and mirrors, Sherlock. A play for the people. I'm a villain and therefore should be villainous in everything I do,” he rolled his eyes and sighed in exacerbation. "You're the hero and therefore should be heroic. It's why people are so affronted by you. They expect John Watson or Detective Lestrade, some self-possessed, pragmatic hero they can pour their hearts to. Instead they get you and they, being idiots, see that as somehow less."

In deference to the astute appraisal of the truth of his own existence, Sherlock nodded. Regardless of what people were expecting when he turned up, it wasn't him. It had always been so and seemingly would always be so. It had been part of the charm of John's unexpected reaction in not biting back with a name or recoil at Sherlock’s deduction of his life story. Part of the appeal with Jim, too, he supposed. If John had been unexpected once in a cab, Jim was the very embodiment of ‘unexpected.’ Unexpected, for instance, to giggle in a car together and poke fun at his brother when, minutes before, Jim had been snarling yet restrained, organized and deadly precise, so utterly without the flamboyancy he'd shown Sherlock first. "Sooo changeable,” he rumbled, echoing the words Jim had practically sung to him at the poolside.

Jim's smile broadened at Sherlock's own enjoyment. "Mmm, quite. You have to be changeable in this business. I suppose part of me is that man, but not all of me. Hardly any fun being that much of a slave driver all the time. Besides, I'm not the only changeable one in the car." Sherlock was a mixed bag, to be certain. An hour ago he'd been almost furious at Jim for insinuating-- well, bluntly stating, really-- that Sherlock was attracted to him. Now, he sat complacently, giggly and smirking, obviously eager for their dinner. What else was he eager for? The information? Possibly, but not that much. Sherlock had said nothing was vital. Jim gave up trying to predict what Sherlock would do and decided to just toss it all and enjoy the company. "You and your brother are very different, like me and mine, I guess," he said, offhandedly.

"Well, that was transparent," Sherlock said sarcastically, mouth gritted around the cigarette he was lighting up. As long as they kept to this, this frank enjoyment of seeing each other work, Sherlock felt in his element. Straying outside of it, to the cheap and tawdry insinuations made merely to ruffle him, he was sure, evoked that fearsome loss of control Jim had mentioned earlier. That he'd have no part of. He saw nothing irrational in enjoying Jim's company while Jim was being agreeable and putting his foot down when he was not, despite Jim's riposte that he, too, was changeable. Changeable, yes; irrational, no, he neatly decided for himself. "Go on, then. Since you plainly want to: My brother for yours."

Jim grimaced, "Ugh, my brother and your brother would have contests about which one of the two of them had the bigger iron rod up their arse," he groaned, just picturing Mycroft and his older brother in the same room over a warm cuppa and biscuits. "Every Christmas, my brother sends me a card informing me that he hopes I have a Happy Christmas and reminding me what a complete and utter disappointment I am to him. Every year he mails me a rosary and a plane ticket to Dublin, and every year I burn the ticket and the card and chuck the rosary in a drawer. I could hang myself with them by now, I'm sure." He paused for a moment before continuing. "By the by, if you're thinking he'd be good leverage, don't. I don't secretly love my brother like you do. He's also woefully in the dark about anything remotely related to my business."

"Using your brother for leverage would be such an unutterably boring way to win the game, only you, and possibly a Bond villain might try it,” Sherlock said, dispelling the notion. "Secretly love my brother, indeed."

"Christ, no. Ten minutes with Mycroft would have me scratching out my eyeballs,” Jim replied.

At the insult to his brother, Sherlock scoffed in agreement before needling further, "Retrospectively, I'm not sure why I was surprised you have a brother. You likely have fourteen brothers and sisters. What do they all think _Uncle Jim_ does apart from shirk his duties as very Irish and very Catholic?"

Jim went still, his expression thunderous for a moment before stating quietly, "There were nine of us. My other brothers and sisters are dead. There's only the two of us now. He's given everything for his career and will likely never marry and women are...not in my wheelhouse. So, there are no brats in anyone's future." He took a moment before moving his expression back to something playful instead. "But, he does try to remind me often how very un-Irish I am and how every atheist is going to burn in a lake of eternal damnation and so on and so forth," he continued before inhaling from the cigarette Sherlock had lit and passed him.

"How?" Sherlock furrowed his brow, curiosity overtaking what little excuse for manners he had.

"IRA bombing in Belfast. They targeted my brother's home because he was in the government, turncoat that he is. Ironically, it killed all of them except him. I'd already left for London. Instead of realizing that he was the one who inadvertently brought this on our family, it was easier to blame me," Jim explained with a shrug.

"I should offer condolences," the eyebrow Sherlock quirked showing how little he meant them.

Jim rolled his eyes at the condolences as if to beg Sherlock to stop being so utterly and unnecessarily predictable. It wasn't easy, the loss of his siblings, but that was due more to shock than anything.

Sherlock, too, had grown serious, but he hadn't shifted back like Jim had. Instead, he thought he’d shift the conversation to something rather more mundane. "To my rather certain knowledge, there are only two of us. Father would positively never and either way they wouldn't count,” he said, offering a nibble of information in return for one back.

Jim smirked at the bit of information Sherlock offered up. "Oh, so I suppose Sherrinford was one who didn't count, then?"

"You'll rightfully accuse me of self-centeredness, I suppose. He doesn't count, because only Mycroft has ever had what-I-cannot-imagine-was the pleasure." Sherlock shrugged, ashing his cigarette out of a crack in the window. "He's not what I meant. My father fathered no other children besides us. He'd have been caught within milliseconds if he had tried to, and the children he'd have on his own wouldn't have counted as Holmes to anyone. The name comes from Father, but we are very much on Mummy’s end of the bell curve, so to speak.”

"So one is to assume, then, that your displeasure in this eldest Holmes brother stems largely from the fact that he, unlike you and Mycroft, has committed the terrible sin of being like your father? It's not terribly fair to treat him differently based on genetics, is it?" Jim asked.

"To be frank, I hadn't considered he might not be like us.” Sherlock granted,  “I assumed he was Mycroft on steroids. Not literally, of course, if he were Mycroft exaggerated he wouldn't be on steroids. He would, for example, avoid telling me about what my murderous enemy said when locked in a room together like Mycroft, or perhaps, would be better at keeping it a secret, unlike Mycroft.”

Jim thought about his confinement with Mycroft and the British Secret Service, "He's interesting, your brother. Much more stable, constant than you are. It's where you draw part of the persona from. Not the crazy, half-cocked detective bit, but the uncaring, unflappable, unfeeling side of Sherlock Holmes with his poncy hat and sweet blogger. But, being you, you take it to the extreme. He's not uncaring, just dreadfully, painfully repressed and restrained. Everyone know's the Iceman's weakness has only ever been his junkie, baby brother," Jim said, flicking ash out of the cracked window.

Sherlock paused with a questioning look and looked down as though he were in the infamous mind palace, though he wasn't, he was merely searching briefly through what scant evidence in support of or against Jim’s assertions concerning his brothers. He dragged on the cigarette but then had a realization and smiled, a smile of puzzlement as though Jim had done something inexplicably silly. "It's ridiculous that women ‘aren't in your wheelhouse,’ as you put it...” he said, derisive of the phrasing, “...and yet you would still call the hat poncy and mean it derogatorily."

Jim groaned. "For a public school boy, you really do have state school boy definitions of things. I mean poncy as it's defined, as in woefully pretentious, not the slang, you great git," Jim remarked. He added the git comment to tease:  Jim was, after all, a state school boy. He could be as common as he wanted. "Oh, and what would have been better, Sherlock? 'Not my area?'" He asked, deepening his voice to emulate Sherlock's rich baritone. "Honestly, the things John Watson puts on that blog."

"He _never_ blogged about that, did he?” Sherlock rolled his eyes in overplayed exasperation. “For Heaven's sake."

"Of course he did, Sherlock” Jim nodded. “Rule one of Baker Street: If Sherlock Holmes does it, John Watson praises it and writes about it," he groaned. "Please tell me you _read_ the thing?" He asked incredulously. "I have people read it and tell me anything important. Christ, I know more about what your flatmate thinks about you than you do, don't I? If you have indigestion one day, I'm sure it goes on there," he finished, drawing another pull from the cigarette.

"Of course, I don't, and of course, you do. Does that 'person you have read it' happen to be yourself? I feel flattered, grand ploys for my attention, careful following of my 'blog,' " Sherlock said scornfully, knowing that to a well-connected man like Jim, it was futile to pretend that much importance could be derived from John's sentimental retellings of the cases Jim was most likely already better informed about.  "Furtive meetings in cafes to talk more about me, and a collection of meaningless but accurate details about my schooling and childhood pastimes. I had a dog, you know. Of course you know," He said with a smug smile, both accusatory and knowing. But though the last statement was a meaningless detail, just Sherlock teasing him for having an obsession, Sherlock found himself looking at the old evidence in a new light.

Perhaps Jim had not been glibly lying when he said he was earnestly interested in him. This conclusion was both flattering and vexing. Sherlock had neither considered him capable of attracting the emotion, until fairly recently, nor deemed that this man was being anything but falsely adulatory when he openly claimed to be obsessed. At least, he'd not seriously considered that the 'infatuation' was anything but a false part of a bombastic persona. But, if this was less the persona and Moriarty more the act..."I'm surprised you _have_ a wheelhouse to begin with." He announced as though his thought process had been said aloud to explain the non sequitur.

"Sherlock, I hate to disappoint you, but I'm a rather busy boy. I don't have time to cipher through all that trite, saccharine writing myself. I've read the cases that have to do with my enterprises, but other than that I have other people filter it through. I get reports," he explained. Jim had told himself at first it was because John provided such an easy window into their cases, another way to learn Sherlock's weaknesses in order to beat him, but that had fallen away. Now he did it because Sherlock was interesting, fascinating to him.

"Yes, yes, the dog. Every aspiring captain must by design have a first mate.” Jim waved his hands dismissively, before raising his eyebrows at the abrupt shift in conversation. "It really shouldn't, Sherlock. Of course, I have a wheelhouse. I don't deny myself my passions and urges. In that way we're very different. I am at my heart a hedonist, completely unreformed. I seek pleasure from life. Your drug use suggests some of the same tendencies. But, you're not precisely the type for quiet introspection are you?

"Quiet? Yes. Introspection? No,” Sherlock scoffed.

“Every time I say something and remark about its underlying motivation it's like you're seeing the light for the first time. Your biggest mystery has always been yourself,” Jim continued. “You seal your urges and desires away so thoroughly in your urge to deny anything that smacks of sentiment or feeling.”

“Well,” Sherlock shrugged. “I'm often called self-absorbed, yet everyone else is always on the quest for "self-knowledge" or some such nonsense while they miss how many steps there are in the staircase they go down each morning."  He drew his knees up to his chest and sat as though he were considering something. “Drugs are a distraction, not a pursuit in and of themselves. Not like the men in your wheelhouse. Men, is it?"

“Yes, Sherlock, men. Decidedly. And the men _in_ my wheelhouse are a distraction, as well, I suppose. I didn't say hedonism was my only aim, but it is a fantastic diversion from all of this," he looked around gesturing to the car cabin. "No one can be that clinical and calculating all the time. Well," he paused tilting his head and looking at Sherlock, appraisingly. "Almost no one. Then again, I still suggest that's a construct. Just as much as Moriarty and Detective Holmes are. All part of the persona.”

“No.” Sherlock shook his head, decisively “Not _everything_ is part of the persona. At least not in my case. The occasional temptation to indulge in that particular weakness does strike from time to time, but it’s not uncontrolled. And _other_ potential weaknesses,” he emphasized with distinct distaste, “aren’t controlled or uncontrolled. They are simply non-existent.”

“And John? Seems fairly uncontrolled and rather in existence, no?” Jim asked. It hadn’t missed his notice that Sherlock’s response had tidily left out any mention of him.

“What of him?” Sherlock furrowed his brow before quickly correcting what he assumed was Jim’s mistake. “Not a distraction. Or a weakness. You’ve miscalculated entirely if you think that a man with temper issues and a high tolerance for gore is a weakness of mine”

"John _is_ a weakness, naturally. Not in and of himself weak, but a weakness to you. Just like your brother and your puppy dog and Irene Adler. They're all pressure points. As am I," he drawled. "Each functions differently, for each you would do and act and be different things, but regardless, all are significant in your life.” They were getting close to the hotel now, and he out the window into the dying light of day before talking again. “For instance, John is loyal and he loves you endlessly. You find both of those things remarkable."

To punctuate the statement, Jim grabbed at Sherlock’s wrist, using his watch as he had none of his own. “Ah, right on time. Perfect.”

For his part, Sherlock resisted the momentary urge to seize his wrist back and merely rolled his eyes in exasperation as he allowed Jim to look more closely at the time than was reasonable. “Can’t you just use your phone?” He said, at last taking his wrist back with a minute shake as if to rid himself of the sensation altogether.

“All the better to watch you squirm, dear.” At that, the car pulled to a stop outside the hotel. Jim led them both through the marbled lobby and toward the left to the restaurant overlooking the water. Jim moved them confidently through to the restaurant. It was, in fitting with the rest of the hotel, expensive and top of the line. The maître d' at first explaining to Jim in sneering French that they were fully booked for the night, but with a quirk of his brow and a quietly hissed threat only he and the now frantic man could hear, a table for two had managed to become open rather suddenly.

"I would have hardly minded going elsewhere. Unless of course all that hissing about was to punish someone for disobeying you, regardless of what I'd mind or not," Sherlock chided.

"They have the best wine cellars in Paris and it shouldn't have been necessary at all. When you own a half-interest in a place, you shouldn't have to make reservations," Jim complained loudly so the man seating them could hear. He ordered a bottle of the 50 year old Merlot he was fond of without glancing at the menu. Only when the man had scurried off did Sherlock continue their conversation. Of course he was, Sherlock was never one to let anything go, after all.

"Don't be ridiculous, and _don't_ project so terribly. John doesn't love me, endlessly or otherwise." He shrugged like he'd just corrected a minor deduction. ‘Inaccurate statement, but it hardly matters,’ he tried to say with his demeanor.Sherlock was pretended to peruse the menu as if he were trying to decide what he wanted, when he knew full well what he'd order. He faux-smiled at him and anyone would have mistaken them for a pair of friends or business associates

"I'm not projecting," he sighed. "Not at all. Merely observing what others perhaps fail to see."

"Please. There’s nothing to observe at all. He’s clearly disgusted and furious whenever someone mistakes us for...." Sherlock chose not to finish that particular sentence, and continued in a different direction entirely. "The preponderance of evidence points to the fact that he, unlike us, is straight."

He waited for him to move off again before continuing. He undid the napkin and placed it in his lap. "He loves you in his own way. Romantic love isn't always the strongest type. John Watson has spent his life hunting for things to die for. You're one of them. Reminds me of Moran forever looking for something to kill for. We really should throw them in a locked room with some handguns and let them have at." The waiter returned with the wine, pouring it for them both to taste and waiting for Jim’s approval before filling a set of glasses. Jim handed him the unopened menu. "Bring me whatever the chef thinks is best tonight."

"Whatever is most expensive,"Sherlock said to the waiter in fluid French, before handing over the menu.

Jim gave a half-smirk at Sherlock's order. Still hostile, then. "Unlike _us_? Well, thank you for confirming the obvious, I suppose."

"Don't think I mean we aren't straight, so we're gay. _You're_ not straight because you prefer men. I'm not straight because that would imply an orientation," Sherlock said, having deliberately set up the sentence so as to invite and then provide the means for the rejection of the idea. It was a similar conversation to the one he'd had in the cafe with John. Despite, or perhaps because of, how much John seemed to resent the implications directed at them, he smirked and relished the opportunity to now make a similar jab, "You and Moran, then? He must be very happy. You happily allow yourself to be cast in the role of 'someone to kill for.' "

"Seb is in many ways, my John, just without all the hovering and jumpers," he pulled a dramatic thought of the terrible jumpers. "Even more posh of a background than you or Mycroft, actually. His father's some sort of Baron or something. Completely my opposite in most ways. And, before you get any ideas at all, the best marksman money can buy. Not even your brother's deepest of MI6 connections could touch him, so don't waste the money, time, or blood."

"I wouldn't. It's not _my_ way to attack people ancillary to my enemies.” Sherlock said, making a point to emphasize this obvious difference between himself and Jim. “How does a man with such a background find himself in your service? Is he..interested?...in you?"

"He was dishonorably discharged from the army. Still didn't keep your brother from noting his... skill set and attempting to recruit him. In short, I got there first and offered more money and more fun, frankly." Sherlock's other question gave him greater pause, but still he answered. "Perhaps," he remarked lightly. "Seb isn't a very discriminatory lover, so it's certainly within the realm of possibility, but that's not my speed. You know dipped pens, company ink, so on so forth."

"Oh? What do you fear might happen? A lover's quarrel leads the best marksman money can buy to pick you as a target?" He sipped at his wine, not knowing too much about these hedonistic pleasures to truly appreciate it, but enjoying the taste nonetheless. A small sip, though. Mostly to create the illusion that he was sipping at it. He could imagine the sorts of things it would take a Baron's son to be dishonorably discharged and resolved to conceal the existence of this Moran from John from as long as he could, not wanting to invite anything like the 'locked room' scenario Jim had alluded to, earlier. He'd also make sure to emphasize the existence of Moran to Mycroft when he decided to play the more moral elder brother, apparently not too hypocritically moral to want such a man for his own purposes.

Jim snorted. "A lover's quarrel? Trust me, with Seb and myself there would be no threat of that. He's not sentimental in the least. No, it just makes things complicated. Besides, he's not at all my type," Jim continued, sipping the wine and relishing in the familiar taste. "So... what? Have you never wondered, never been tempted, or is this like the drugs?" Jim asked curiously. "Afraid of something you've never tried because sex involves trust and, to some extent, a loss of control?" It was strange that something might be so overwhelming that it overrode Sherlock’s natural curiosity, Jim noted.

"Will you sell this information, too? Or, merrily continue referring to me in conversation by my lack of experience?" Sherlock smiled only slightly, but smugly. "It's not a weakness. It'd be just gossip. I've experimented, like I've experimented with most other things." Lies. He'd never shown interest, rarely been interested, had hardly kissed as though he meant it, because he did not. Even in private, he only rarely had ever watched pornography for the sake of arousing himself, much more often using it as research.

"I'm sure you have," Jim replied. Sherlock was lying, that much was obvious. "Oh, 'the virgin'? No, I rather think that still applies. You don't fool me for a moment," Jim said lightly.

"And? You and my brother and Irene, you all use it as something derogatory. It even makes John roil. I take it as a compliment." More lies. "Further proof that I'm not so easily distracted."

"As a compliment?" Jim asked incredulously. "What? As a tribute to your steely self-control? Your ability to avoid distraction? Who are you proving it to? Seems to me you're denying yourself some pretty compelling data. Sex is a primary motivator for crime, you know that."

He might have countered with why that was a ridiculous argument, he hardly had to experience sex itself to understand why it served as motive so often. He hardly needed to experience jealousy to know about crimes of passion. Understanding was enough, in those cases, he told himself, ignoring how in fact he had felt those jealousies and betrayals and furies that motivated those crimes, and had not, however, experienced that one. But to argue the point would court more debate on a topic he decidedly did not want to discuss, so he chose instead to move on.  "Speaking of distraction, you did promise me the.." he huffed, as if there could ever be such a thing. "...’methods of throwing me off the scent.’ "

Sherlock let the thread of conversation go. Fine. There would be time. Nothing was ever simple with Sherlock, and everything progressed in layers. This was only the opening act. Jim thought for a moment about the ways in which Sherlock could be distracted. "You'll always go for the closed room and ignore the open window. So, I tell my clients to create ancillary crimes that are more unusual, more difficult for the Yard to solve. Tricky little crimes I invent. Just enough to pique your interest. You snoop around for a few hours and conclude it not as interesting as you'd hoped, meanwhile they've imported sixteen tonnes of cocaine and murdered a former business partner."

"Oh..." Sherlock said after some time in silence considering what he was actually being told. He couldn’t help the note of of disappointment in his voice. "Well, that's not cleverness. That isn't _outsmarting_ me, that's doing exactly what you said. I don't _want_ those crimes in the first place, I'm likely one of the eventual purchasers to these cocaine pushers.....Is that your solution, to have me chase a fox while you move chickens? Come _on_. That hardly counts." His voice had picked up speed and volume as he’d launched into the invective against John’s methods, and it had all built momentum until he’d blurted out how little he cared about those crimes being committed at all. Of course, he didn't lie to himself about being moral, he called himself a sociopath very loudly. But it was almost shocking to hear himself say aloud that he didn’t mind those illicit things, which he knew would eventually result in ‘ _People hurting, Sherlock,_ ’ John's voice unhelpfully supplied. Those crimes, he didn't mind, by virtue of their not being a challenge, a dramatic puzzle to solve and glory in.

"They're only chickens because you don't realize them to be anything else, Sherlock. There are fantastic murders I've plotted and planned and laid out that you've not even noticed because they're that subtle. These men need practical solutions for the things that make their businesses money, i.e. drugs and weapons, as well as intricate jobs. During our little dance with the pips, I managed to take out three competitors, kill three people, torture two more, and make business transactions totaling well over a half a billion pounds. All because you were busy." Just then the waiter was back to bring out their first courses. Jim scooted toward the table and cut off what was revealed to be a piece of duck, popping it in his mouth. "You're also distracted by anything that involves me," he said after swallowing. "I use that to my advantage and figure out ways for you to link crimes back to my empire. The surest way for you to get tunnel vision is when you think I'm at the other end."

He shook his head and was running through his own cases so quickly, thinking so deeply, he didn't touch his food and might have seemed like he was physically hurting. Wrong, that was wrong. He hadn't. Business transactions, fine. Drugs, leave well enough alone. But, the part of him that did respond to morality and perhaps prevented him from the same path that Jim had taken did feel disgust at the torture that had gone on, that he might have seen if he weren't so easily invited to this game of theirs. It turned their fascination with each other--yes, apparently, rightly called that after he was forced to conclude that Jim’s ‘tunnel vision’ comment was hatefully correct--from something that was actually becoming enjoyable in an odd, exciting way. It turned the appreciation for each other's similar methods that he’d only barely acknowledge at the warehouse into something dark and he felt utterly stupid for having been called to play along with it, both in the times he'd done so willingly and not. The dizzying speed of his thought process and how each claim in his defense fell to the side of the powerful evidence that this man was speaking true made him revisit something that had been gnawing at the back of his mind the entirety of the afternoon. It was a conclusion he'd come to privately and tentatively in the company of the other slippery criminals he'd met earlier and caused him to make three unrelated statements, linked as they were in his mind. "And here, I thought Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland." He finally looked up, glowering. "Show me your cards, I'm not _that_ good of an actor."

Jim saw the signs and understood them, for what they were. It was strange watching someone else twist and bend their mind the way in which he did. He noted the almost wounded expression on Sherlock's face, his morality coming into play, perhaps. "You know what I do, Sherlock. I see no point in hiding it from you. If that makes me a snake, I'll make sure to say some rosaries the next time I manage to be arsed enough to care. What do you mean, Sherlock?" He asked, his head tilted. "What cards?"

"You say you sell your information on me, you say I wouldn't _belieeeve_ the amount of people who would pay 'ridiculous amounts of money' for it. And yet. you drive me to where your many associates are and not one of them recognizes me? All these people, no one ever bothered to determine what I _look_ like? Paid for information on someone and then contented themselves to be able to pass them on the street and not know them? Your Mr. 'Beautiful Place' would see his operation compromised by me in Brussels? I'm good, very good, but not that good, I'm afraid. What are you _doing_ with me here?" He said, accusatorily, ever on the lookout for the big problem hiding in a little one.

Jim stilled. It was only ever going to be a game with Sherlock. Christ, he'd been an idiot. He listened to Sherlock’s deductions as he grew more and more thunderous in his expression as he continued. "They aren't my associates," he explained his tone brusque. "They are my competitors. They paid me a large sum of cash to help them get around you. They import their business through me on the London side of my house. I tell them what to do to aid me in creating distractions. They cover all costs of both the importation and anything I need to keep you occupied and they pay me well for my services." He drank deeply from his glass before standing up abruptly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Sherlock Holmes, it's becoming more and more apparent that this was a mistake. Because I am only ever going to be a snake and you are only ever going to be the vestal virgin. I was bored, you were bored." He leaned in close, almost in Sherlock's ear. "I didn't bring you here, Sherlock, you _came_....Now, the real question you should be asking is why you did. Do let me know when you've actually worked it out." He straightened upright and turned. "Enjoy your meal. It's on me," he said over his shoulder, before strolling away slowly.

Had he done it again? Had Sherlock needed Jim to invent some complex puzzle to end in a showdown? Was that a common surname, meaningless? Did they simply not care to know what he was like as long as they could apparently pull him in any direction they chose? He felt perilously close to petulance, embarrassed by the potential of being so certain and yet so wrong. He'd grown used to having the upper hand, had craved a challenge, and then had lost, also embarrassing. He was furious with the simplicity of it, furious that he'd done exactly what Jim had told him he'd do seconds after Jim had told him he'd do it, livid that he'd spent the evening deflecting accusations of his own penchant for the theatrical and then had overlooked that it all might be _real_ and not a game to play. It was as though he'd been absent the entire time he'd been in Paris. "There wasn't any _point_ in London. " He shouted ahead of himself, not turning to Jim and startling the people sitting in the table formerly behind Jim. He sat still and stiff in his seat like a boy resentful at a reprimand. "I was bored, but here you just told the truth the whole time. I came to see Moriarty and you showed me _this!_ " If he'd have been younger, he might have been close to tears. "It isn't enough when it's this straightforward. It was straightforward in London and it's been straightforward here now, too." He scoffed in disgust and tucked his head against his shoulder, "Mistake, indeed."

Jim knew other people were watching with rapt fascination. Fuck other people, and fuck all of this. He turned back, quickly closing the gapped space between them. He'd had enough. Enough with the sulking and the dramatics and the infuriating denial of everything that had been building since they'd met. His hands went to the lapels of Sherlock's suit jacket and he bent over before tugging Sherlock forward and crashing his mouth into his. It lasted only a moment before he released Sherlock, nearly thrusting him back in his chair. "You are a petulant child, and you don't know what you want. Worse, you know what you want and are too fucking afraid to do anything at all about it. You want Moriarty? Fine. You'll have him, _mo chroi_ ," he crooned, his accent growing more pronounced with his anger. "Penthouse, 12th story. Come or don't." And with that Jim left, not exhaling until he'd reached the elevators and jabbed at the button to his floor.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry we kept you waiting a bit longer than typical. Summer school is rough. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Follow us on Tumblr!](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-chapter-4) playlist for this chapter.

When Jim had furiously reappeared in his line of sight and grabbed at him, Sherlock had expected to be struck, which, really, would have been fine. But the whine--deep-voiced as it was, it was still a whine--of utter shock that something like _that_ elicited was thankfully muffled against Jim's mouth. He didn't close his eyes as he knew people did, he just stared ahead, shocked for the brief and violent moment that it lasted. He didn't manage to look less utterly thunderstruck and, frankly, terrified as he was thrown back down. Jim was surprisingly strong for his build, and his efforts were aided by how frozen Sherlock had gone. Sherlock’s mouth tried to form a snarl, but nothing came out, and he felt, after Jim had left, that his eyes stung from having not remembered to blink the whole time.

 

But curiously, he suddenly knew it was this that he’d come for. Not the kiss, but the fury and absolute madness in the way he was picked up and thrown down again, of not knowing what came next. It wasn’t confusion, exactly, it wasn’t that he’d miscalculated or failed to guess at his next move. Those seemed now like variations on a theme. Even when he sat looking disgusted and feeling utterly manhandled, an ice cold fear chilled his spine and made him sweat. He had _never_ felt that way at Baker Street. He wanted to be home this instant, and, yet wanted Jim to do it again. It felt like the first hit of pure, strong heroin he’d had when he was much younger after developing a tolerance to all forms of cheaper strains. You really could die, and you'd still pay whatever it cost.

 

He wasn't going. Jim was furious. Sherlock could be shot, for all he knew, and he'd never see his flat again. He took his phone out and fiddled with the keys, not really typing or forming any messages that he wanted to say to anyone. Even John's disapproving voice had gone silent in his head, leaving him feeling much like John was somehow sitting back at the flat, too disappointed to speak to Sherlock. He didn't know how long he sat there, consternation evident, like the hours and sometimes days he spent on his couch, thinking. He stood angrily from the table and snarled a painful deduction about some waiter's wife. He found no satisfaction, only the realization that he wasn't satisfied with it--neither the deduction, nor the horror in the other man's face.

 

He took his coat from the seat and knocked it over as he whirled it on and marched murderously furious to the elevator and the 12th floor. The door was unlocked and he threw it open, looking for all the world like he really might kill Jim, "What. Is. It?" Sherlock demanded through bared teeth.

 

Jim had gone upstairs and, once he was in the confines of his rooms, flung off his jacket. He lit a cigarette and went to the side table, pouring himself a stiff tumbler full of whiskey. He sipped, snarling at the fact that it wasn't particularly good whiskey but was still pleased as it burned its way down his throat. Sherlock was likely halfway to the airport by now, and, frankly, good riddance. The man was ridiculous. He'd flown here under the guise of getting information from Jim. Once he’d gotten it, as shocked absolutely no one, he’d been dissatisfied. Oh, sure, he’d flirt and banter back and forth, but was still too terrified to do anything at all about it. Suddenly, the door flew open and a seething Sherlock Holmes stood in the doorway.

 

"What is what, Sherlock?" Jim asked, unperturbed.  "What's the point? I was bored. I'm _perpetually_ bored. I did you a favor, I got some company out of it and hoped for a fucking spectacular shag. Instead, I get accusations about trying to set you up. Trying to kill you? Pay attention. I. Don't. Want. To. Kill. You. I didn't bring you here for that, and I surely didn't bring you here to trick you and play act the whole fucking time."

 

"No, _idiot,_ " Sherlock fumed at him. "What was _that_? _Why_? What the _hell_ am I supposed to do now? You _did_ try to kill me. Have you forgotten? Is it suddenly _wrong_ of me to think that you'd try to kill me? That _you'd_ want to trick me? When you've done nothing _but_ that." He'd lowered his head between his shoulders and stared straight ahead, like an animal raising hackles, and was speaking far too quickly for himself, for once his mouth outpacing his head. "Why _this_? What. IS. it?" He repeated himself.

 

Jim downed the rest of his whiskey in a gulp and stepped into Sherlock's space, looking up at him. "You and I are two sides of the same coin, Sherlock. Hasn't that dawned on you? In a million different recreations of all of this, a million different Sherlocks and Jims, they would still be orbiting one another like we do. Look, you’re a chemist.  If you take an electron pair and put them half-way round the world from one another and then change the direction of the rotation of one, the other automatically changes. It just does. No one knows why, there's no way one electron could have known, but it does it anyway. We're like that. I don't understand why, and honestly I don't really care. All I know is we walked into one another's lives and neither is willing to leave. So, stop fighting it and bloody well do something to end all this fucking tension before my brain tears itself apart."

 

Sherlock stared down for a long time, brow furrowed. He really should keep his distance from this man. There was no reason for him to be here now. Not really, if he was honest, other than the pull Jim acknowledged and Sherlock understood. But, neither of them liked it particularly easy, though. There wouldn't have been any of that infuriating thrill that he'd felt and that Jim was apparently well aware of, too. He straightened, a human pose from an animalistic stance, and drew himself up to his full height. He wasn't sure at all what to do to elicit that feeling again, so by way of demonstrating that he was too far gone to go home now, he slowly turned and shut the door quietly, before turning back, very seriously looking back at Jim.

 

Sherlock looked as if he was completely unsure what to do next. Of course he was unsure. Jim berated himself. Sherlock had likely never done any of this before. He was completely in the dark on this one, a feeling he was sure Sherlock was no more comfortable with than he himself was, likely less so. Jim stepped forward and leaned up, a hand slipping to the nape of Sherlock's neck, tugging him down carefully until Jim's mouth pressed against Sherlock's for the second time tonight. It wasn't brutal or bruising like the kiss downstairs had been. It was slower, the promise of more shimmering hazily from its edges. His other hand twisted into the fabric of Sherlock's shirt. If he could manage to get Sherlock's brain to quiet for a moment, they just might have a chance at this. Slowly, his tongue darted out, tracing the bottom line of Sherlock's lower lip.

 

Sherlock’s heart felt like it had jumped against his rib cage before reminding itself it had another beat to make, an appointment to keep of sorts. He'd followed the hand that reached up and around him with his gaze as far as he could before he shut his eyes and allowed himself to be guided down against Jim’s mouth. He felt the other hand in his shirt and took a slight step forward, but was unsure where to put his hands so he clenched them into fists at his side. Nothing like the last kiss in circumstance or in physical feeling, but exactly like it in the newness of it and in the itch it somehow scratched without his having ever realized that it was there in the first place. He shivered a little at the tease of his lip. Starting and stopping only a few times before he managed to properly do it, he held his mouth open, an invitation to do what he expected was supposed to come next.

 

Sherlock’s posture was still stiff and defensive, his hands still pressed into his sides. He was less returning Jim's kiss and more tolerating it. Jim's hands left the places they'd originally nested themselves and instead ran down the length of Sherlock's arms and tugged his hands, putting them on his hips. He pulled out of the kiss, nipping and licking at the pale column of Sherlock's neck. "Stop thinking about what you 'should do' and trust your instincts, Sherlock. Let go of yourself a bit," he murmured.

 

Sherlock uncurled his hands as they were guided to Jim's hips. Without having any prior experience to compare him to, he got the vague sensation that Jim was not just merely practiced but skilled. Of course, he'd be skilled. If Sherlock had given this sort of thing much thought, he'd have come to that conclusion before during talks of hedonism and wheelhouses. But, it only occurred to him now, as each touch was well-announced. If Jim meant for him to open his mouth, he suggested the idea with his own. He'd stroked his arms as if to remind Sherlock of them before telling him what to do with them. When he spoke into the crook of his neck, Sherlock couldn't help a small sigh. Sherlock gently, more gently than was really necessary, put a hand around the back of Jim's head, stepping back a bit to pull him away from his neck and press his mouth to him again. As soon as he did it, instinct told him he wanted to pull back even more, not out of reluctance to do it but out of that sort fear of the unknown Sherlock hadn't felt in ages until the restaurant. He encircled Jim's waist with the other arm and finally did find himself turning his head slightly as he mimicked Jim's earlier, teasing at his lips.

 

Before Jim could voice his protest Sherlock was threading a hand around the back of his head and guiding his lips back up to his own. Jim hummed lightly as Sherlock finally began moving his mouth against Jim's, his arm snatching around Jim's waist. He tilted his head and Jim let his tongue testing, asking for entrance, and Jim gave it. He let Sherlock set the pace in order to give him some semblance of control. Jim's hands unbuttoned Sherlock's tailored suit jacket before brushing around his waist and up the planes and angles of his back. This, Jim decided, had been long overdue for both of them. All that frustration and tension now flowing into the points at which their bodies touched and ramping up into something else, something more. Jim moved forward slightly, pressing himself further into Sherlock's chest and relaxing into the sensations all vying for attention.

 

Sherlock felt Jim’s hands gliding against his waist before the wiry body pressed into him. Not long after, though, he pulled back from the kiss, not brusquely, merely because he sensed he was done. He'd tasted the whiskey on Jim's breath and he found himself longing for the burn, though alcohol was not his vice of choice. Drawing himself up to his full height, he cleared his throat and gestured awkwardly to the bottle of whiskey behind them. "It's rude to..." he reconsidered. "Won't you invite me to your whiskey?"

 

Jim couldn't help the sigh that escaped when Sherlock pulled away ending the kiss and their contact. He nodded, grabbing his own discarded tumbler and another for his guest. "I apologize beforehand. France has excellent wine, but their whiskey, even imported, just isn't the same." He handed Sherlock the filled glass and gestured for him to sit in one of the chairs while he sat in the one opposite it.

 

"You'll have to invite me for proper whiskey, then,” Sherlock said before he sipped at his drink, erring on the conservative side.  "Something of an education for me, I was never a big drinker, even in my youth."

 

"Mmm, nowhere does it like home," he said brusquely. "I'm not surprised you don't drink. It's too slow for you, disorienting. I can't imagine it's like cocaine at all. Not that I would really know. When I was younger it was a matter of principle. You don't use your product. But, even after, I never saw the appeal. There were other ways to keep myself diverted,” Sherlock grunted noncommittally. Some things, perhaps were still not open for discussion. Jim took a drink and continued.

  


"So, does it make better sense to you now? Mr. Beaulieu is very real and somewhat dangerous, and I hid you in plain sight from him. Who would suspect Jim Moriarty to walk practically arm and arm with Sherlock Holmes? You're good enough and changing your personality and affect that you were rather unremarkable to him. We can go back to London and play our parts, our roles and all that boring nonsense, but here? No. No parlor tricks. I think what I'm offering will be enough to stave off any boredom."

 

Sherlock sipped again, the welcome burn making him want a cigarette to go with it, even if it would be more abrasive to his throat. _Because_ it would be abrasive, actually. Carefully prepared to admit he had misjudged the entire situation entirely, he lit a cigarette and tried to say coolly, "I did just what you said I did. Looked for the locked door and ignored that you meant what you said. It was the only possibility that I was unprepared for, that you might not try to destroy me while here." He swallowed more of his whiskey but left it half-empty.

 

He listened to Sherlock very delicately and underhandedly admit he had been wrong. Jim smirked. It was something he himself would have done, never one to admit his shortcomings. "I knew you would. It's what people like us do--overcomplicate, infer and jump to conclusions based on past data. There's no point in me trying to destroy you any more, Sherlock, not really." He gestured toward the pack of cigarettes Sherlock had and waggled his fingers for one. Sherlock acquiesced and tossed the pack. "Don't get me wrong,” Jim continued, his teeth gritted around a cigarette filter as he lit it. “You'll still chase and I'll still run, but in some way I think we're hurtling towards something completely different now than we were then."

 

"What is the point of returning and continuing on with the same old game? After...." Sherlock paused, and opted not to finish the sentence with whatever it was that they were going to do tonight. In light of what they might do, it occurred to him that perhaps he should be honest. "I lied earlier...." He said before quickly occupying himself with another drag from the cigarette.

 

"I know,” Jim said bluntly into his whiskey. It was woefully obvious Sherlock had never done anything like this, experimentation or not. "This isn't coercion, you know. You get uncomfortable, say so. We stop. I wasn't frustrated because you're uncomfortable with sex, darling. I was angry because you keep denying there's anything here in the first place. Clearly, there is, and I'm curious enough to want to explore it."

 

 _Were they going to?_ Sherlock had never been this far with anyone. Rather, he'd never been so close to actually seeing it through with anyone. Of course, John had made him consider his position on the situation. If only he'd made an initial move, provided Sherlock with the surety of intention that Sherlock sometimes saw clearly and other times was not sure if he merely imagined. Then, Sherlock was reasonably sure, there'd be something entirely new at Baker Street in addition to tea and experiments and references that he did not care to understand. But John remained resolutely offended at any implication that the two might progress to anything physical. Irene had certainly offered, but Sherlock had been too involved in the chase, the case, the thrill of victory to bother exploring the other sort of high she might have offered. None of it was like standing in a room rented for this use, with someone ready and willing to disclose an orientation compatible with his identity. "Does it weaken me?" He said, sounding more vulnerable than he intended, though he remained serious.  "If I do this, and we go back to London, does this become a new vulnerability in your estimation?"

 

Jim heard the thinness in Sherlock's voice, a chink in the armor. He supposed he really could have used this all against Sherlock at some future date, make it brilliant enough for him that he kept coming back for more until one day Jim sidled up alongside him and slipped a dagger between his ribs. But, if Jim were being honest, it seemed all a great and terrible waste. "No, Sherlock. Doing it won't make you weak, not doing it doesn't either. Maybe to ordinary people, but then again they're ordinary." He drank again.

 

"Interesting you should say that.” Sherlock pointed out, “You certainly tease about it enough to make it seem like a weakness." He saw the sense in Jim’s words, though. He supposed that if he could talk himself into thinking of it as having been a means of getting high of sorts, or a method of data collection. It need not be thought of as a vulnerability at all. Other people, he thought derisively, that was not even an object of consideration.

 

Jim couldn't help but smile, "No, I didn't use it as a weakness per se, more because I knew it would goad you. It wouldn't have done to call you the 'Iceman.' You would have taken that as a point of pride, but it irritates your brother because he's not. He cares about people. You in particular."

 

"But..." He felt it making more and more sense, somehow, to cuddle the viper to his breast. He arched an eyebrow and offered his final limitation, the final wall to break down if it could be broken down. Logos had convinced him, pathos has undeniable in the pull between them, only the rarely thought about appeal to morality remained against it. Yes, he was largely unconcerned with morality; if he'd been younger, the decision would have been made after "Would I? Could I?" with little thought of "Should I?" But he thought he’d test the waters for the last time, then, and so he allowed Jim to confront the last excuse he had: "John."    

 

John Hamish Watson. Jim tilted his head and thought of the nature of their relationship. Clearly, John cared for Sherlock, loved him even, but that love had been quartered off in John's mind as strictly platonic. Sherlock cared for John in the way in which he felt he could and likely would have allowed John to pursue a sexual relationship with him if that's what he really wanted. "If this is a one-time occurrence, it won't matter. John will never know and you can slip back into the domesticity of Baker Street like a pair of wool socks. If the more likely scenario comes to pass and this is something we both find interesting and appealing which we would like to continue to do once we get to London, John will still likely never realize what's happening. If you want to keep it from him, you easily can. It's not like I'm going to come bounding out of your bedroom one morning in one of your dress shirts making tea and breakfast for the three of us."

 

Sherlock snorted derisively at the notion, “Why yes, we’ll just add it to the rules.  ‘No experiments touching the food. No fiddling after 2 am. No inviting Jim to stay over without advance notice, so as not to conflict with John’s interminable list of women.’ "

 

Jim smirked at the image, but grew serious again, going for the heart of the matter and Sherlock’s unspoken fear. "If you ever did decide to tell John, he'd be angry and upset, but he wouldn't leave or end your friendship. Again, far too loyal for all that. He'd just hate me. Which is absolutely nothing new at all."

 

Sherlock had to concede that point, too. John was an exceptionally forgiving man. And regardless, what business was it of John’s in the first place? He had no cause to question what Sherlock did on his own. No real reason for him to actually function as the higher power. Still, it was a betrayal even without the complication of feelings; anyone would expect their friends to not willingly look for sex in their attempted murderer. Of course, he'd known intellectually he could lie to John. But Jim made it seem appealing, as though the best for everyone could be obtained. John could still feel his purpose, Sherlock could still run John. They could have what they had currently. Additionally, Sherlock could have the rare thrill of finding an equal, but still preserve the play-acting in London. He finally moved from the stock-still position he’d held throughout the conversation and ashed his cigarette. He sighed to himself, looking more intently into the ashtray than he strictly had to. He knew full well what his decision was. Looking back up at Jim at last, he grew more resolute in his acceptance of the idea.  “I haven't the slightest notion of what to do," he said with a vague air of superiority, a vestige from when believed himself above the act. “I defer to your likely obscene amounts of experience,” he attempted to say nonchalantly, because otherwise his voice might have trembled.

 

Jim's smile was carnal, just this side of predatory. He stood up and went to Sherlock's chair. He took the crystal glass from his fingers and plucked the cigarette from his mouth for the second time today, crushing its ember and leaving it in the ashtray. His hands rested on either arm of the chair as he leaned forward, inches from Sherlock's face. He could smell Sherlock’s aftershave mixed with the faintest hint of whiskey and the chemical bite of nicotine and ash.

 

"Oh, that part is dreadfully easy, Sherlock," he purred, pressing forward to whisper in his ear and laying a faint kiss at the corner of his jawline.

  
"Come to bed with me.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexy times ensue...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow us on Tumblr!](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-ch-5) for Chapter Five.

Sherlock uncurled his hands when Jim took the glass, offering no resistance. Time seemed to slow until his heartbeat sounded loud and measured in his ears, though it must have accelerated, not slowed. He could smell expensive cologne, far finer than the aftershave he wore himself, and the whiskey on Jim’s breath. Sherlock struggled not to shudder half in fear and half delight as Jim whispered in his ear with that wickedest of grins. _Well, sod this._ He was not going to be simply 'done' this to. He was going to plunge into this with the gusto and mad glee with which he pursued his other obsessions. So, he turned, whirling out of the seat and followed to the bed, perching at the foot of it with one leg on the ground and one knee drawn up. "Easy. Please. Nothing's ever easy with us," Sherlock said, but it wasn't an insult, more like an invitation to play.

He went to the dresser and slowly undid the buttons to his waist coat, sliding the material off and then undoing his cufflinks, tossing each on the wooden top, all the while studying Sherlock through the dresser’s wide mirror. Sherlock was perched on the bed looking every inch like a jungle cat, all tensed muscles and fluid grace, ready to pounce at the slightest circumstance. It was interesting, this mix of predator and prey; Jim wasn't sure yet which role he wanted to occupy. After he’d divested himself of his tie, Jim went to stand in front of him. If Sherlock brought his other leg down, Jim would be nestled between his thighs as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Oh, I do hope it's not. Easy is terribly boring," Jim crooned, letting a hand reach up to thread through Sherlock's curls. He raked his nails from Sherlock’s scalp lightly to the back of his neck and traced the line of his jaw, and Sherlock tipped his head back in response, exposing his long, white throat. Jim ended his fingers’ exploration by lining the lower edge of Sherlock’s pouty lower lip, at which Sherlock huffed like a surly child when Jim’s touch was gone. "We mustn't be boring, darling,” Jim finished.

At Jim’s teasing, Sherlock opened his eyes to look up at Jim and smirked. Being that Jim was already undressing himself, Sherlock decided to follow suit in a manner of speaking and slowly but surely brought his hands up to Jim's top button. He began unbuttoning it, but by the time he had finished, the idea occurred to him to repay Jim for the shock he had given him earlier. He placed a gentle hand over the hand on his jawline and stroked the back of it as a tender lover might. Jim’s eyes flickered shut and he sighed. But once Sherlock was sure that Jim was lulled, he curled a hand around the other man's wrist, and pulled him down as the other hand pushed him onto the bed at the hips, until they were both on their sides facing one another.

Jim chuckled, "Oh, not so fast, Sherlock Holmes," he called before grabbing Sherlock’s exposed shoulder and toppling him over on his back beside him. His mouth pressed into Sherlock's neck, kissing and nipping the soft flesh he found there until Sherlock was tilting his jaw up offering the whole expanse of it for his pleasure. Jim’s hand brushing over the man's chest and torso, pulling the front of his shirt out of his trousers. He touched the flesh of Sherlock’s stomach before brushing lower across Sherlock’s flies to rub at Sherlock’s thigh.

Though Sherlock had been intent on watching Jim’s every move, the brush at the juncture of his thigh made his eyes flicker away and then back, subconsciously. He was not hard yet,  he rarely found himself fully hard. It was not normally an impediment, on the contrary, it was something of a convenience. Whether from lack of anything that sufficiently aroused his interest or from lack of knowledge of how to pleasure himself, his erections did not come easily and often faded without completion. However, the other tell-tale signs of arousal were otherwise there, he felt his face grow warm and he believed that his pupils would easily show themselves dilated against his light colored eyes. Less easy to tell was the pupillary dilation of Jim's brown eyes in the relatively dim light, not that there needed to be evidence of Jim’s arousal, the way he nipped at him and greedily pulled at him. “There are...ah..." he said, after a particularly well placed nip. "...quaint sorts of connotations about who does what, are there not?"

Jim broke away from Sherlock's neck and snickered. "Sherlock, is that a very convoluted way of asking who's going to top?" He rolled up and over Sherlock, straddling his hips and sitting up. He began flicking open the buttons of Sherlock's shirt one by one as he contemplated, "Now that is a tricky question, isn't it? Both dominant, both wanting nothing more than to 'win' the game." His hands brushed lightly over the patches of pale, creamy skin they exposed, sometimes feathery soft, other times scratching, but always keeping Sherlock guessing. His hands found their way to Sherlock's dusky nipples, tormenting them as they pebbled and puckered beneath his nimble fingers. Sherlock arched and hissed at the constant stimulation, but Jim merely smirked and continued. "However are we going to decide? One of us is going to have to show trust, vulnerability to the other. Hardly our strong suit is it, dear?" He remarked, his hips grinding into Sherlock's. He looked the man in the eyes, admiring the way the dimmed light played over the angles and planes of Sherlock's face. "Fuck me," he said lightly.

He blinked once at Jim and his final statement. Sherlock hesitated but eventually grasped the thighs that straddled him and ran his hands over them admiring the definition evident in them even through his trousers. "I may not necessarily..." Well, he hadn't wanted to seem weak earlier, but he couldn’t see how he could avoid it now. But there was little choice in the matter, "I often don't..." He wasn't personally discomfited by the difficulty, rather it had made it easier to restrain himself, but now it seemed like something to hide. He looked up and sighed, narrowing his eyes, hoping Jim would take his meaning, that he might have to plead inability, not unwillingness.

Jim cocked his head to the side listening to Sherlock's fractured sentences, enjoying the hands roaming his thighs. _Ah, so that's how the monk has kept his composure all these years._ He paused for only a moment before making up his mind. "Scoot up the bed," Jim ordered, quickly getting off of Sherlock’s lap. "You may not ‘usually,’ but I'm not usual, now am I?" he asked with an arched brow. Sherlock did as he was told, moving all the way back until he was sitting up at the headboard. Jim took the opportunity to rid himself of his own white shirt and the infernal trousers, before climbing back into the bed and crawling up towards Sherlock, eyes burning. He slipped Sherlock’s open shirt from his shoulders, admiring the lanky, muscled frame he found there, now fully exposed. _Christ, he’s almost too pretty._ "I'm going to do some things and you're going to tell me how you like them. Think of it like an experiment. Just keep talking, tell me of any effects. Besides, that voice of yours might just be your best asset, Holmes," he finished with a wink. He nudged a leg over, settling between them, still on all fours as he leaned forward and caught Sherlock's mouth, staying only for a moment before firmly kissing down his jaw and to his neck, sucking at his pulse point and nipping his way across the man's Adam's apple before dipping his tongue into the hollow of his throat and across his collar bones.

"The..." Sherlock shivered against the headboard, pinned to it as Jim began gliding his tongue across his collarbone. "Downstairs...." He swallowed, conscious of the bobbing of his Adam’s apple due to Jim's close proximity to it. He hadn't forgotten who he was with; he knew that Jim likely knew several ways to clamp his teeth down on his throat and rip through the skin or crush his windpipe. But the fact that Jim could and had so far failed to do so called to mind the terrifying yet intoxicating vulnerability that Jim had mentioned. "What you did downstairs was promising,” he managed, his eyes closed, arms shifting to help Jim unclothe him.

Jim traced the lines and edges of Sherlock's body, as he listened to the breathy quality of Sherlock's deep voice, felt the shiver run down his spine as Sherlock explained. Clearly, he was doing something right. Downstairs? All he'd done was kiss Sherlock, but slowly it dawned on him that it wasn't what he'd done but _how_ he'd done it that excited Sherlock. He'd been angry, furious with Sherlock, and he'd kissed him bruising hard, wanting it to shock more than seduce. He was trying to kiss sense into the most pigheaded, stubborn git that ever lived... Well, save himself. "So, rougher is better, yes?" Jim asked, taking a chance and biting down more sharply on the man's shoulder.

Sherlock groaned and bared his teeth, throwing his head back and, at once, clutching Jim’s waist to him and pulling him forward. Having him near this way inspired action without prior thought. He bit down in return, not hard enough to hurt him seriously, but hard enough to leave a mark on the muscle above his clavicle. Jim moaned into Sherlock’s ear as his teeth scraped against the skin. Herein lay the genius of what Sherlock was asking for without initially even understanding what he was asking for. The pleasure dulled his mind and the pain heightened his senses. Not only did the two sensations combine the exact brain chemistry that euphoria called for, but they had the side effect of allowing him to feel, rather than exist in a space from the neck up where he had spent his entire life. "I'm not thinking,” he said, releasing Jim's shoulder. "I'm not thinking," he said again without any note of frustration like when he couldn't think for noise or distraction, but rather with triumph.

"Good job, darling. Welcome to sex. Do try and keep up," Jim snipped, a grin giving away his real intentions. _Oh, this will be interesting. Always leave it to Sherlock to keep it fresh._ Jim's tongue traced down from Sherlock's clavicle, latching itself to a nipple, giving it a sharp nip before running his tongue over it in apology. His tongue would flick and tease and lap before randomly biting sharp enough to hurt without drawing blood in attempt to keep Sherlock off kilter.

Whatever attempt at cataloguing sensations that Sherlock might have made quickly became lost to the very sensations himself. Pressed against the headboard as he was, the image of a moth pinned to a board suddenly and absurdly occurred to him. As if in rebellion against the passivity of the positioning, he brought up a hand behind Jim and scratched up his spine as hard as his nails would allow him. He was pleased with his efforts as Jim moaned in response, unable to see but more than capable of imagining the beads of blood that might form and the scratches that would linger for weeks. He might not have been thinking but Sherlock could still snipe back without any of the deep mental processes that normally accompanied his every move.

"Not quite yet, I'm told. Surely there's more to it than this?" Sherlock smirked, spurring him on. He reached a hand forward and pushed his shoulder back so as to push him further down. Not a shove, not like during a fight, rather, it was a dare of sorts.

Jim’s first thought was to press up, fight against, but then a wicked smile spread across his face instead. “Oh, just you wait,” he purred. He trailed his tongue down past Sherlock's navel, his hands going to hook both Sherlock's unbuttoned trousers and pants, sitting back to rip them from him completely. And then, there he was, completely nude and stretched out before Jim like some sort of holiday feast. He was all long limbs and pale skin, a rather impressive, but still half-flaccid cock nestled in a thicket of dark curls. After admiring, Jim went back to work, biting Sherlock's hipbones harshly, leaving marks he would feel later. He went past his cock without even a side glance, though, settling between his thighs and biting the soft flesh firmly. "I have to say Sherlock, this might just be my favorite skin yet. So soft. So…" He bit again, "...responsive."

For all his efforts at disguising it, something about being entirely unclothed made Sherlock feel his vulnerability keenly. Nudity per se never bothered him, he was rather more uncomfortable with being the object of desire, being unused to it. Drawing his legs together was impossible with Jim half between and half propped on them. Even when he’d bucked his hips up at being bitten, he’d stayed largely in place, managing only to cuff Jim lightly in the mouth with a thigh.

Not that he wanted to draw them together, here was James Moriarty nestled between his legs, biting near some of the more delicate portions of his anatomy. Here were the trust issues, after all, the loss of control. When he was sure he could speak without faltering, he caught himself making small talk of all things. " Lower limit, upwards of twenty with an upper limit of, say, half of the United Kingdom," he guessed at previous partners, without much data, breaking one of his own rules. "An attractive hedonist who can shapeshift into whatever any partner wants him to be." He said as supporting evidence for his estimation of Jim's promiscuity.

"Attractive? High praise from the lofty virgin." He giggled. "All the better for you, anyhow. Your first time should always be with someone who wants you fiercely and knows exactly how to prove it to you," he remarked, kissing Sherlock’s thigh gently and looking up to meet his gaze as he did so. "Now, stop slut shaming me and enjoy what I bring to the table, which is, after all, rather a lot.”

At that, Sherlock laughed sharply. "Yes, you're mortified at my harsh judgement, I'm sure. My flatmate's bedded the other half of the UK that you _weren't_ interested in and Irene's... " He sighed, feeling himself achieve a hardness that he rarely did as the--admittedly, yes--responsive skin of his inner thigh was first warmed then cooled and his cock stiffened further "...whipped them all once you lot were through.”

Jim thought for a moment about all of them--himself, John, Irene. Three impossibly dissimilar people, and yet this they had in common. "Good sex is all about shape shifting,” he explained. “Who could be better at that than you and me? We do it everyday just to blend in," Jim murmured against Sherlock's flesh, licking a wide stripe up his inner thigh and then blowing cold breath onto it. As his mouth worked the skin, his hand went up tentatively to palm Sherlock's now mostly-hard shaft. "It appears I seem to have some talent anyway," he remarked. He admired the velvety softness of Sherlock's most delicate skin under his palm, feeling the steely hardness growing there and sending electric shocks to his own cock, long since hard and waiting.

In any other circumstance, Sherlock might have found this particular discussion a fascinating one to have with Jim, but if he was struggling to make small talk before, he certainly found himself distracted now. More than that, he narrowed his eyes in accusation at Jim. It was clear even to Sherlock that he was just being very intentionally toyed with. He was beginning to  resent the hand idly playing with him, rather than the immediate manifestation of what was surely a carefully cultivated arena of Jim's technique. Giving into the frustration he felt with the too-gentle grip, he reached a hand down to pump at himself in lieu of any serious attention given to him there.

"Oh, but I'm just getting started, impatient one." Jim slapped away Sherlock's hand, fighting the urge to watch the man stoke himself. Some other time, perhaps. "Not tonight, darling. _Mine_ ,” he warned. Sherlock had managed to work himself up to complete arousal now, and Jim hovered above his erection for a moment, merely looking Sherlock in the eyes defiantly. And then slowly, keeping that eye contact, he opened his mouth and took Sherlock in at a languid pace. He flicked his tongue, swirling it around the head of Sherlock's cock and sampling the flavor he found at the slit, before flickering it down his shaft as he took more and more of him into his mouth.

Sherlock was about to form a clever retort when Jim locked eyes with him and breathed that word, 'mine,’ at him. After that, he'd allowed his hand to be batted away from himself. He'd expected a plunge into it and then a frenzied pace, but this was... _Oh, he would, wouldn't he? Monstrous_. Sherlock grunted and thought to swear at him, but Jim’s tongue silenced him, though he still fought to say _something._ He clutched at the satiny sheets beneath him with one hand and ran another hand through his hair, but it found it the utterly wrong thing to do at the time.

He shut his eyes tightly, unused to the sensation, but opened them in confusion only a moment later when he felt Jim stop. He wasn’t pulling off as if to indicate he’d changed his mind, or as if Sherlock had done something wrong. He’d just stopped. He opened his eyes to find Jim staring up at him, but beginning to move at the pace he’d set before. Losing the ability to consider the exchange any further, Sherlock once again closed his eyes and almost groaned as Jim once again abruptly and without warning stopped. It was then Sherlock made the connection; he was being conditioned to... _ha, what else?_...watch him if he wanted a performance. He wasn't shocked by profanity, obviously, but had been well-trained to not use it himself, usually opting for a more well-crafted variety of insult. The pace and wordless demands that were being put on him edged him perilously to the very limits of his control, though, and he'd had very little practice in stopping himself: "Fuck you,” he said, well-enunciated in the poshest of accents. He was reduced to swearing, the only way to keep him from saying what he truly wanted to: _God, I'll ruin everything. Stop, before I can't._

Sherlock was writhing in earnest now. Jim had had so many fantasies about ruining all that cold calm, knowing that somewhere underneath it all was tinder just dying to be set aflame. In response to his posh insult, Jim hummed deliciously around the thick shaft before slowly lifting off all the way to Sherlock's tip, letting his tongue dance and twist around his glans before sinking down again. One hand kept him propped up, but the other gently brushed Sherlock's thigh before raking nails harshly over the already bitten skin. Encouraged, Jim increased the pace of his sucking, opting now for shallower thrusts at quicker rates, hollowing his cheeks to increase suction.

"N--" The 'no' tried to escape Sherlock, guttural but incomplete. He threw his head back against the headboard, not feeling the blow in all its intensity just then, and clawed at the bed frame underneath them. Finding that unsatisfactory, he took to clawing at himself down his throat. He tried closing his eyes to get him to stop as he had before, but finding that it no longer yielded the same response, he grunted with a rasp from his throat. "If you..." He said digging his heels into the mattress to try and pull away, "If you want me to do it, you have to...I can't very well," he tried to reason.

Jim pulled off the man, smirking at his ability to render him essentially speechless. "Well, what do you say so far, Sherlock? Enough to keep you occupied?" He asked, winking at the man. He crawled up Sherlock's body, kissing his way up the lanky body. "Now, why don't you put that gorgeous head of yours to some use and show me exactly what you'd like to do to me," he murmured against his lips before kissing his mouth forcefully.

Sherlock had demanded to be let go of and then moaned to protest actually being let go of. Before he could reconsider his decision, however, Jim had snaked his way back up to his mouth and cut off the wide-eyed gasps he heard himself making. Sherlock’s hips bucked a few times by instinct, until he could quiet them and the trembling in his legs. He swallowed and panted until he could finally form a questioning look, "What do you..? 'Head'?”

"Anything you want, darling. I don't care. Just make it good or I'll kill you," Jim said in a dark tone. For a few, painfully gullible moments, Sherlock looked horrified at the brief slip into the old act before Jim burst out with a peal of laughter.  Sherlock huffed and pushed him off once he'd lost that rubbery feeling in his limbs.

"Really, though," Jim said coming back to himself and reaching up to pet Sherlock's curls. "If you're going to fuck me, you're going to have to get me ready for you. We'll walk through it," Jim said. He had to remind himself that all of this was painfully new to Sherlock. "Everything you need is in the side table." He said, throwing his head in its direction. "But first, I believe a change is in order. Mainly, I'd really like to be under you, Sherlock Holmes. Much easier to claw your back when you're inside of me that way," he crooned.

Sherlock made very little effort at hiding the way his eyes lit up. This. This was a way to bait Sherlock and keep him in interested, more powerfully than even the physical aspect of this could have. He felt his own eyes light up at the promise of learning something new. "Show me,” Sherlock said, eagerly, as he sat up straighter. "Everything."

"Alright, I'll show you," Jim agreed, smiling at Sherlock’s curiosity. He shimmied out of his pants before he tugged Sherlock over on top of him. "Rule number one: I like that you're bigger than me. Remind me of it often," he remarked. He grabbed one of Sherlock's long-fingered hands and led it down it down his body. "Erogenous zones are erogenous zones. I'm not telling you which ones I like best. That's for you to suss out," he said with a wink. "Go ahead, start there. More when we get there.

Sherlock opted for being accused of plagiarism, perhaps, but at least having a place to start. He ran through the data he had unwittingly collected until now, flickering his eyes a few times as he did so. Jim had called them two sides of the same coin, he reasoned. Jim evidently relished some lack of control, hence the appreciation for the size difference between them. _'I quite enjoy being small and slight,'_ Jim had said when they'd met outside the hotel.

He allowed himself to be tugged over Jim and settled on sprawling over him on all fours. Now, he could control how much he was bearing down on Jim beneath him. He propped himself up on his hands and knees but took his hand back from Jim to grab the small-boned jaw and tilted it to the side at an angle sharp enough that any further might be uncomfortable. Sherlock could see the flutter of the pulse underneath the skin drawn taut over Jim’s neck and he bent to softly flick out at places where he knew nerve bundles concentrated.

"You really are one of a kind. Thank fuck you're a quick study," Jim exhaled. Sherlock then moved back and Jim fought the whine that almost escaped his throat.

Sherlock allowed himself a private little smile. He might have been a virgin and known little medicine, but he knew anatomy well enough to rival anyone. He licked tentatively at the juncture of Jim’s ear and jaw and began traveling down towards his throat, sucking at the clavicle and hollow, reasoning that Jim would have targeted the areas he himself considered sensitive. Before moving to his chest, though, he sat back onto his heels above him. He shrugged noncommittally, "Perhaps I'll have a cigarette first." But he made no move to get it, merely peered down at him, waiting for him to realize that he was being teased.

"Not on your bloody life, Holmes," Jim growled. "Do it and I'll pin you to this bed and keep you hovering above an orgasm for six hours," he threatened. Again, that sounded promising _. Another time? Yes, another time._

Whether that was idle threat or in fact something that could be done, Sherlock did not know. He thought it prudent to not voice his skepticism just then, though. Eventually, he'd ask how to stave an orgasm off for that length of time, hyperbole as it likely was. _Eventually._

Voice. _'Voice is your best asset.'_  He moved back into the position on his hands and knees he'd chosen earlier, this time resting on his elbows. "Hardly in a position to argue,” he said, purposefully using his deepest voice for Jim. He'd demonstrate, too, that he might become possessed of the talent to turn into what he needed to in the bedroom as well. He hooked his right arm underneath Jim to pull him up into a kiss, sucking at his mouth greedily, and dropping him  when he was through. He then turned his attention to twisting and pulling nipples enough to pool and trap blood there before settling onto him like a large cat on top of their prey, suckling at each one alternately while running a clawed hand through Jim’s once well-coiffed hair.

Sherlock’s voice made Jim almost writhe in pleasure. Jim reached down to run a hand through Sherlock's sensitive locks, tightening his grip when Sherlock did something particularly nice to his body. "Right," Jim said breathily, his voice falling more and more into its native accent. "Second lesson is simple. Hand jobs are dead easy. Do what you like to do to yourself. Find something that makes his skin crawl and keep doing it."

"Ugh. That tone, for God's sake. You've either taught, or been around many teachers before." Sherlock stated.

Jim smirked at him. "Yes, well. Astrophysics doesn't teach itself." He noted Sherlock's vaguely surprised expression. "What? Thought you were the only educated one in the room? Please."

Sherlock shrugged Jim’s statement off but made careful mental note of it for later. Rather than responding, he brought a hand to his mouth to provide lubrication for the 'hand job,' but reconsidered after a very feline lap at his palm that perhaps he need not be bothered with it himself. He stroked against the grain of the fine hairs up Jim's abdomen, chest, and neckline to circle his lips with a finger before snaking it into Jim’s mouth.

A finger was slipped into Jim's mouth, then, and he sucked it diligently before biting it firmly, not enough to break the skin but enough to get the point across. "We're not completely in the rough here," he said. He tilted his head for a moment before acting. He reached for the tiny bottle in the side table, found it, and flicked it open, pouring some of the lubricant into his hand and then reaching for Sherlock's. He took Sherlock's now slickened palm and wrapped it around his cock, guiding it to touch him the way he liked.

"Well," Sherlock said amusedly, once his hand had been guided down to around the other man's cock and he'd begun a slow and steady rhythm, in payment for the earlier, tortuously slow movements he'd been subjected to himself. He'd not had much practice at this with himself, either, but he swiped one well-slicked thumb over the sensitive frenulum and around the ridged head as he slightly increased the tempo. He chuckled and quirked an eyebrow. "I suppose I'm impressed," he said, very purposefully not bothering to clarify whether he meant Jim's credentials or proportions.

"Good," Jim replied, his hips rocking forward into Sherlock's hand. "You should be." The pace was slow, but Jim could handle that. He gasped at Sherlock's finger slipping over the sensitive skin, tracing the rim of his crown. "I am rather impressive," he said cockily, voice still breathy and lazy. He could do this for days, watching Sherlock watch him, letting his hands stroke and fondle him. There were worse torments in life. "Mmm," he hummed. "We can stay on this lesson if you want, or you can go lower and work me open for you. Choice is yours. Much more beneficial step for both of us, though. Gives the promise of mutual satisfaction."

"I'm glad you're pleased. I was a terrible student." Sherlock made the decision without informing him of what it would be, merely lowered himself further down his body and batted one of his legs up and out of the way. He reached up for the small bottle of lube and with one hand clicked it open and squeezed it generously into his palms. Rubbing it onto his fingers, he took the step that seemed most logical to him and began rubbing the slick on his fingers onto and around the other man's entrance before it occurred to him that he could choose both of Jim's options. He arranged the leg that he'd moved over his own shoulder and circled his left arm around the thigh and resumed pumping him with his left hand.

Jim hummed as Sherlock slunk down his body and groaned when one of his fingers traced around his entrance. The anticipation was killing him, not that he'd ever show it. The hand circling around his hip and the strokes to his cock were a surprise, however. _Clever boy_. "Oh, very good," Jim praised, his head thrown back against the pillows almost losing himself to the twin sensations. "You might have been an awful student, but you were clearly a brilliant one.”

Sherlock continued in this fashion, pressing slightly but not entering yet as he increased the rhythm at which he pumped Jim. He'd been toying with an idea in his mind which he decided he might enact. He let go of Jim, then, and instead lowered his mouth down until he could lap at the droplets forming at the tip of Jim's cock. He ceased the circling briefly as he concentrated on mimicking Jim’s earlier actions, sucking lightly at the tip. He'd seen the opportunity when Jim had hollowed his own cheeks and perhaps inadvertently shown more cheekbone than he normally did. This, he had often been informed even by those in his company that counted themselves as very heterosexual, was another of his assets. He sucked only on the very tip, and repeated the motion, accentuating the sharp edges of his face as he glanced up as if to say, 'Yes?'

Jim watched Sherlock with lust-blown eyes. He'd known this would be good. _Christ, we’ve wasted too much time trying to kill each other._ This was _so_ much better. He looked alien and gorgeous, those strange, angled cheekbones even more dramatic in the half-light of the room, and Jim realized those wickedly bowed lips were made for this. Days afterward, he was sure he would think about Sherlock Holmes nestled between his legs, looking up at him innocently with wildly colored eyes and those obscene lips wrapped around his cock.  Sherlock was watching him expectantly and Jim fought to keep his eyes open and nodded. "Vibration is good," Jim panted. "And tongue. Use your tongue."

He blinked in understanding and hummed out a sigh, low and gravelly. Sherlock swirled tongue around the ridge of the glans and then withdrew to run it along the underside of the shaft. Convincing himself that he could without making a fool of himself and tried taking him down his throat entirely. Though the sensation was utterly foreign, he refused to seem incapable of doing this and he continued, alternately humming, alternately withdrawing his throat and then sometimes running his tongue in broad strokes. Once he'd deep throated him, he locked eyes with him, understanding the dessert metaphor Jim had used before he’d come to Paris. He felt like a lynx, having trapped their meal, isolated it up a tree, and devoured it. Furthermore, it emboldened him to act without direction and he inserted the very tip of his finger into him, circling to widen him.

 _Cheeky bastard_. And, then Sherlock’s tongue did some lovely things to the underside of Jim's cock, and he forgot to be annoyed with him at all. He felt his cock hit the back of Sherlock's throat and then suddenly he felt the familiar, though unexpected, sensation of Sherlock loosening his throat muscles and swallowing him down, eyes staring at Jim's. This was better than he'd expected. He should have known better than to expect anything less with Sherlock. He was always surprising him. Sherlock eased a finger into him and he couldn't help the needy noises that fell out of his mouth at the sensation. Everything else was lovely, wonderful, but this was what he needed.

"More," Jim demanded.

"It's so arbitrary,” Sherlock noted as he penetrated him to the first knuckle and pressed at his inner walls, trying to locate the sensitive spot on the other side. Once he was confident he felt the slightly elevated, harder organ, he increased the pressure there and attempted to glide over it with each stroke of his finger. "The distinction between which of us is on top or on the bottom. You want to be underneath me, and yet you're as demanding as ever. Which one of us is supposed to be in control?" He asked, making conversation as though he weren't doing his level best to render conversation impossible.

It felt like his blood was on fire. Maybe because of the way in which Sherlock almost expertly found his prostate with those delicate fingers, maybe it was the heady mix of someone so virginal and yet somehow so competent, maybe it was just that voice booming like thunder and the ripping of satin. Jim was listening to Sherlock's question, his hips arching up to grind into Sherlock's hand. "You really haven't figured it out yet have you?" He asked, simpering condescendingly just to get a rise out of him. "Good sex has a top and a bottom, a more submissive and a more dominant partner. _Dull. G_ reat sex? Great sex is _always_ a battle. Making love, making war, same difference. Now..." He broke off, letting out a groan as Sherlock flicked over his prostate in just the right way. “...do tell me which you'd rather have."

Sherlock glanced up, smiling smugly at the tone and phrasing of the words deliberately meant to emphasize his newness to this, meant to taunt. He dug more harshly and massaged more deeply this time and lifted his eyebrows in a sort of 'whatever' expression. "Do you think you might be ready any time soon?" He sighed, adding a note of boredom to his voice meant to challenge. "Or, are you still frightened I might hurt you?"

"Darling, you should know by now I'm never frightened," Jim quipped, arching an eyebrow. "Especially when there's not a thing in the room that's even remotely scary. Well, except for me," he grinned, flashing a predatory smile.

Nodding as if accepting the riposte to his challenge, Sherlock reasoned that he'd be stopped and chastened if he really stood to hurt him or did something he didn't like. He reached for the bottle again and squirted lube into his hand, which he then rubbed onto himself. Leaning forward, he brought himself back over top of Jim and considered how best to position them. Sherlock tried propping him onto his own knees, thankful for how light and easily moved Jim was, but found it less than satisfactory, so he roughly pulled a pillow from beneath Jim and wedged it under his hips. "It _is_ convenient that you're so slight,” he said, looking down to judge when he was right at the point of entry. When he felt he could push through, he looked up as if to ask for permission.

There was something lovely and awful about being manhandled like this. If Sherlock had been anyone else in the world, one of the pretty, vapid men he brought to bed, he would already be dead. But from Sherlock, it teetered on the between arousing and hateful. Jim huffed and arched up and forward, pressing the blunt head of his cock past the tight rings of muscle. "It is convenient," Jim agreed. "The agility doesn't hurt either," he said, tightening his internal muscles around the head of Sherlock's shaft just for emphasis.

Sherlock groaned and shut his eyes at Jim's tightening around him. He couldn't control the instinctual push forward of his hips once he felt the other man's tight and slick heat around him. He tried to go slowly but quickly found himself buried to the hilt inside of him. Jim gasped at his sudden intrusion. Still, he couldn't bring himself to pull out quite yet though, he dropped his head and gasped at the strange and overwhelming sensation around him. He tensed his own muscles and focused on not finishing. Once his mind had finished practically short circuiting, and he was confident he wouldn’t embarrass himself, he pulled out and pushed himself back in, setting a quick and pummeling pace.  

His hips canted forward to meet Sherlock’s thrust, desperate for the sensation. Sherlock was over him and Jim couldn't resist digging one hand around Sherlock's back, nails biting into the creamy flesh while the other palm went to the nape of his neck, fingers twisting in Sherlock's hair. "Christ, Sherlock. Just like that. God, keep doing that," he moaned, head rolling back, neck arching.

Sherlock threw his head back onto his shoulder blades and gritted his teeth as the nails raked across his skin, surely drawing blood as they did so and the hand twisted in his hair, pulling him back and sent a shiver through him. He could think of nothing, his mind devoid of anything except the pressure in his balls mounting and the warmth of the body beneath him, the searing heat of the walls surrounding him. He was panting as he kept up the rhythm, throwing his hips into Jim with each thrust. Never thinking, merely allowing his body to do what it wanted to, instinctually. He was encouraged by Jim's order to keep at this pace, but couldn't have varied without effort, anyway. He merely continued pushing into him, digging his fingers into the other man, surely bruising him in the process.

Jim's mind was totally consumed with the sight in front of him, the sensation of Sherlock sliding into him over and over again. Sherlock was lost in a sea of sensations and Jim couldn't help but admire the man's beauty, before, cool, unapproachable, and now, so debauched, so utterly sexual--Curls damp, muscles straining, teeth gritted. The sight alone was enough to keep Jim fighting against letting his eyes flicker shut. He was being invaded, he was being devoured, and Jim was fine with it, fine so long as it was Sherlock doing the devouring. His hands were tight enough to bruise Jim's pale skin and Jim wanted him still to hold harder, to keep holding him. Sherlock's cock finally found his prostate and Jim couldn't help the undignified cry that tore from his throat. “Fuck, yes. _Sherlock._ ” His hand left Sherlock's back and went to his own weeping cock. He barely needed to lay a hand on himself before he was coming violently between them, his release making him pulse and grip around Sherlock.

The cry that erupted from Jim was shortly followed by Sherlock’s own low, irrepressible moan of pleasure as he felt the spurt of Jim's orgasm against his belly and the rhythmic squeezing around him that accompanied it. "Christ..." He gasped as he felt the mounting pressure in the pit of his stomach fall suddenly away, replaced by what he imagined felt like a current of electricity moving instantaneously from his spine up through the base of his skull. Whether he was shuddering in delight or trembling from exhaustion, he did not know, but the end of his climax left him weak. It occurred to him that it was dangerous to be this enervated before this dangerous a man, but he could not bring himself to care. He could hold himself up no longer and instead hung his head between his shoulders and languished bonelessly, slumped over Jim. Sherlock understood now, he felt somehow that it was a triumph when Jim cried out for him and ordered him to give him more and yet it was still a surrender, he'd certainly lost control himself. Jim might have been familiar with this feeling, but he felt like a foreigner, lost in these sensations. Even his very senses seemed dulled and unfocused somehow and all he could really hear was the sound of his own violent heartbeat and his labored breathing.

Watching Sherlock fall apart was something he'd have to make sure to see again, perhaps some time when he wasn't also in the sudden after effects of a brilliant orgasm. Sherlock released his legs and Jim moved to take them off of Sherlock's shoulders. Sherlock was still caged between his legs, looking as though he were ready to fall over, but resisting. Tsking, Jim reached up and tugged his arm, pulling the man down and onto himself.

"I'm hardly going to kill you right now, Sherlock Holmes. You're more likely to be the death of me.”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow us on Tumblr!](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-ch-6) for Chapter Six.
> 
> So sorry it took us so long with this chapter. As you can see it is quite lengthy and needed to be completely overhauled to serve our purposes now. But it's done! Not making any promises, but we're going to try to get another chapter out to you all by the end of the week. Stay tuned! 
> 
> Now, I will warn you, they don't play nice in this chapter and there's a lot of discussion about John. Never fear, we've told you from the beginning this would be Sheriarty through and through, and it will be. If anything, the later part of this chapter serves as a pretty decent meta about why John and Sherlock CAN'T be together.

Sherlock limply allowed himself to be pulled down onto Jim and was still too exhausted to register surprise at the fingertips that began massaging his scalp lightly. His eyelids felt heavy and he felt himself on the verge of slipping off. But Sherlock hated to sleep, considering it a waste of time if there was something better to do, and so determined that he was certainly not going to sleep at a time like this. As much as he enjoyed the sensation of the fingers barely threading through his curls, he found the gesture soothing enough to make him fall asleep and strange, inexplicably strange considering what they’d just finished doing. He shook the fingers away lightly and rolled off of Jim, sitting up against the headboard instead.

With very little inkling of what to do or say in this situation, he swallowed thickly and searched for something to break the silence, "Cigarettes. Pocket."

Sherlock seemed displeased with touch now that the excitement was over, and to be truthful, Jim wasn’t sure what had driven him to touch him in the first place. He told himself that it was for data. He’d spent so long with Sherlock out of reach, that now it seemed a pity not to acquire any piece of information he could about him. Jim looked up at Sherlock, now seated in his new position, and arched a brow.

"That might work for the likes of John Watson, but not for me," Jim said, crisply. Instead, he rolled over and grabbed a pack from the nightstand, pulling one out and lighting it with a match from the hotel matchbook, before tossing both in Sherlock's direction. He sat up now, back against the headboard as well, watching the view of the Paris skyline at night from the bed. The nicotine rushed in his system, the perfect way to end a shag. He pulled another drag from it and released the smoke toward the ceiling, his head tilted back. "So, initial reactions?" Jim asked.  

Jim hadn't completely denied Sherlock’s request but did not fully comply, either.  It was a difficult gesture to read, true to form for Jim. After lighting the cigarette, he arched an eyebrow as the smoke filled his lungs and exhaled slowly, the stereotype about smoking after sex suddenly justified in his opinion. "Little wonder they are all so preoccupied with it." Sherlock answered, not wanting to concede much more than that. He avoided looking at Jim as they both stared out and puffed silently.

Jim laughed at Sherlock's humor, dry to the bone as always, in his observation. "Sex is a vicious motivator, certainly. Drives different people different ways, I suppose, but yeah, that's what all the fuss is about," he teased, winking. He drew another pull from the cigarette and studied Sherlock.

"The fuss is understandable, I suppose," Sherlock joked. From the pocket of his coat,  his phone began buzzing distantly. But, the coat was draped too far away by the side table where they’d drunk and decided to do this, and never having been one to answer his phone in the first place, he dismissed even the half-formed notion of going for it. He was also not one to make himself do something he did not want to do. So, though he was unsure about the protocol of leaving or staying after the evening’s events, he turned his attention back to Jim. "I have demands," he announced imperiously.

Jim arched a brow at Sherlock's statement and his tone. "Okay, darling. Name your _demands._ " He wasn’t used to anyone making ‘demands’ of him anymore, his clients almost always pleased just to have appointments with him in the first place.

He had a definite area he wanted to investigate further, one that had been made somewhat manifest at the warehouse and during the car ride. But more than wanting to know more about that in particular, he was Sherlock, and he was at the very least interested in Jim. He wanted to know _everything_.  "Where have you taught?” He began, dismissively. “How long? What exactly did you teach and why? These are _not_ the demands, clearly, it's merely a pre-assessment of whether or not you'll be able to keep up."

Jim reached for the cigarettes he'd passed to Sherlock. Christ, he hadn't smoked this much in months. "I graduated from Trinity with my Ph.D in Astrophysics when I was twenty-two. I taught there for three years. Mainly, general physics, but I did have some other classes in M-theory, as well," he said, his voice slipping into the professor's for a moment. "I did it because I loved it, the stars, that is. When I was little, my brain would never be quiet, so I learned about the universe--constellations, the growth pattern of stars, all of it, and it helped me. I was always fascinated by it. I still am," he hadn't meant to be that honest, but he seemed compelled now as he always was with Sherlock, in one form or another. After all, It was part of the danger between them.

"At its barest bones, the most essential elements of chemistry are just applied physics, you know. General physics," Sherlock agreed. He could understand why Jim had initially been drawn to the subject, even if Sherlock himself was not. It was odd to hear JIm admit to ever not having been fully in control of himself, though the description resonated with Sherlock deeply. The kinship between them was enough that he could understand what the connection was between a man's interests in the criminal element and the stars: intricacies, puzzles, paradoxes, always something new to puzzle out, if so desired. Except, crime involved people and no matter how hard they tried, people became predictable. Hence, their pull to each other, perhaps.  "Teach me something, not about physics, something else. I've something specific in mind."

Sherlock was interested in chemistry, and Jim could understand. So many of the complexities of the universe could be observed at the sub-atomic level, each atom almost its own universe. Teach, Sherlock had requested to be taught. Sherlock understood. Somehow, he got it.

"Alright. Not about physics, then. What specifically do you have in mind?" He asked. It was strange. Typically, after his encounters, Jim was more than eager to show his partner the door. But, with Sherlock, it seemed no more awkward than it was when they’d been fully clothed and chatting amicably, well amicably for them, in the car.

"It strikes me you've become something similar to Irene,” Sherlock said, still a little smug at the fact that up until recently he'd been above all this. “Everyone who hopes to persuade someone into bed must, somehow. Even John's completely different with women, and often different with different women."

"You have a point there. I suppose there are similarities," Jim agreed.

“I do it myself, granted not for the same reason,” Sherlock said, turning to scrutinize him interestedly. “But...” Sherlock trailed off, unwilling to ask directly, “Show me.”

Oh, tricky, tricky. Of course, Sherlock would demand a performance. Always too curious for his own good by half.

"Now, if you want to put me through my paces, you need only ask. Tell me what you'd like, or, rather, what this ‘someone new’ I'm to accommodate likes, and you can watch me work." Jim paused.  "Actually..." he amended his statement. "This means you have to do the same. You can't just _tell,_ you have to show me. I have to have that person to work off of, and I know you have the chops for it. So go on then, who's my first new someone?"

Sherlock thought for a while. He eventually had to grant that this was a much better spin on it. Except for the fact that he'd had no previous partners to compare to, so he had little idea of what to imitate precisely. It occurred to him then that the easiest way to start was a person he’d had vague practice interacting with. Possibly, Jim had actually played this part before. He rearranged to sit facing Jim, running through all the minor adjustments to body language he'd have to make. He'd never even attempt the voice, but body language gave her dead away. He pulled a knee up to his chest and crossed his arms loosely around his leg, slumping a little as if hiding behind it subconsciously. He swept a hand behind his hair and over his neck, suggesting the nervous habit of playing with her ponytail and smiled. At first, he smiled broadly, but let himself falter quickly and drew the smile into a tight-lipped, smaller one. She always seemed to be worried about whether she'd be judged, whether she ought to be smiling or not and then he dropped his gaze down hurriedly. "Jim...from..." He blinked quickly, "upstairs, is it?"

Jim's mouth popped open. The git. The absolute git. Molly Hooper. Sherlock wanted him to seduce Molly Hooper. He closed his mouth and shrugged, collecting himself from the surprise and instead went into character. Jim from IT, slightly geeky, warm, kind, a _listener_ , just enough of an edge to fulfill some god-awful fantasy of being taken, but not enough to remotely be deemed threatening. He reached up and mussed his hair and looked down, softened his gaze and looked back at ‘her’ warmly, letting a large, beaming smile play over his lips. "Molly Hooper, right? From the mortuary." His voice lost all pretense of an accent. Plain, flat, a London accent, but not one that could easily be placed. Ordinary. He offered 'Molly' a hand, but then made the angle a bit awkward, botching it on purpose. He looked down, losing eye contact for a moment and fiddling before looking back up and offering an apologetic smile, complete with wide, open brown eyes. "Sorry. I swear I'm not usually this bloody awkward," he said exasperatedly. "But, then again, I'm hardly ever in front of someone as pretty as you." The last bit was delivered with a bit of a blush, a lopsided, half-smile, and earnest eyes.

"Appalling," Sherlock said, dropping character as quickly as he’d put it on. Nevertheless, it had been utterly what he wanted to see. Jim’s gaze shifted away from it usual intensity, something people found off-putting about both of them when they made no effort to conceal it. The accent smoothed into something unremarkable, a talent that must have taken careful cultivation for someone brought up with such an ingrained regional trademark. He'd even caused himself to blush on command. Anyone would believe him. The tiny nuances were perfect and utterly transformed Jim into something unrecognizable.

Sherlock saw his opportunity, then. This was, of course, a perfect opportunity to make Jim play at seducing all manner of individuals he'd likely rather not. He cleared his throat though and put off the air of Molly he'd tried to create. Instead, Sherlock straightened his shoulders back but then slumped them forward a bit and held them tense. When he smoked the cigarette he'd held in the hand dropped off to the side for Molly, he didn't hold it loosely as he normally did, but clawed his fingers around it like he'd been struggling to not smoke but was desperate for this one. When he was done pulling on it, he set his jaw and looked slightly confused and parted his lips a little to show teeth.

"Expensive, these are," he said imitating the vaguely Somersetonian accent.

Sherlock slipped off Molly and slid on Greg Lestrade like most people would change clothing. Smooth, effortless. Remarkable, really. Jim smiled. He'd bet money Sherlock hadn't recognized this blossoming attraction yet, and now he found himself giddy for the reveal. But it couldn’t show, no, certainly not, for the person he was meant to portray. He stiffened his back as though years of public schools and professors had whacked it into him. His face turned to a sheet of immobile ice, giving nothing away, lip pulled somewhere between sneer and condescending smile. He tilted his chin just a touch, just enough so you weren't completely positive he was looking down his nose as you or not. His eyes were sharp, sharper even than his usually, taking in every detail. When he spoke his accent was even more proper than Sherlock's. There was no Irish brogue here, only years of cultivated RP English pronunciation, ever reminding Sherlock that he would always be the superior one, even when they were both just chatting. When he made eye contact with the ‘inspector,’ he let his eyes light up, but only for a moment, schooling it away almost as instantly as it appeared, leaving it just long enough for the detective to catch the scent. Sherlock would appreciate the mystery.

"Ah, Gregory," he said, feigning surprise and dragging out the syllables of the man's name just a fraction longer than usual. "You know, those things will kill you," he sniffed, arching a brow. But then he leaned in, only slightly, voice deepening in pitch, lowering in volume--a peek behind the iceman's mask. "Fortunately, I'm not the type of man to tell secrets."

Sherlock’s facsimile of Lestrade slipped off in equal parts horror and bewilderment. He managed to shut his mouth but stared, the confusion on his face now his own instead of Lestrade's. As far as he knew, they'd met only in the capacity where Mycroft had, of course, asked Lestrade to keep tabs on Sherlock and 'handle' him. Certainly, there wasn't any _attraction_ between the two. He hardly believed Lestrade, who in Sherlock’s view gave all evidence pointing to the idea that he was very firmly heterosexual, would be seduced by a man at all. He'd almost expected some sort of impersonation of a woman gentler than Donovan, perhaps. No man, and very certainly not Mycroft. Then, again, Sherlock  realized with growing repugnance,  if someone would know how to hide something from him, it'd certainly be Mycroft. The disgust was manifold; the idea of his brother in the act of seducing anyone, the idea of discussing Mycroft in that context as he and Jim both sat naked in bed together, and the idea that Jim had sussed it out when, if true, this attraction had gone blissfully over his head. "You’re wrong. There's no reason to believe that. You just can’t be sure."

Jim broke character, he couldn't help it. The look on Sherlock's face was absolutely priceless. Jim laughed, really laughed.

"Stop _laughing_!" Sherlock demanded to no avail as the gales of laughter burst unceasingly from Jim, rolling his eyes and huffing impatiently when Jim utterly failed to laugh, rather, laughed harder.

"I hate to be the one to break your steely resolve on that issue, but if your brother's home is any evidence at all, I can assure you there is every reason to believe that. Every _possible_ reason you could ever imagine. They're very inventive," Jim added just to watch Sherlock's horror deepen at his implications. "I make it my business to know people's pressure points. Mycroft's are you, your parents, and a certain grey-haired, handsome detective. My guess is they're still trying to figure out a way to tell you," he said, reaching for the whiskey and taking a swig before looking at the Sherlock. "Oops."

“Well, I'm not a _child_ , they hardly have to 'figure out' a way to….” he never finished his statement, scoffing instead to communicate everything he had to say on the subject. The way Jim phrased it put him in mind of his brother attempting to explain something obvious to a younger sibling who was thought too immature to initially know the truth. As though both parties had come to the conclusion that it was best for Sherlock if he didn’t know. Granted, his reaction had been childish and perhaps he really didn’t want to know, but he found the withholding of information intolerable. “Disgusting." He finally said after a while. "Is there something you need to tell me? Perhaps about why you were collecting evidence at my brother's home at all?”

"No, not particularly," Jim said confusedly, though still suppressing laughter. "Surely, you realize that I have surveillance on anyone I perceive as a threat. Yes, that means Baker Street," he added.

"It isn't that." Sherlock said still discomfited by the whole revelation about the, apparent attraction _and_ active relationship going on unbeknownst to him. The endless fits of laughter from Jim were not helping either, but the concession that he'd had an unfair advantage in sussing out the truth--spying the truth, better said, actually-- did put Sherlock at ease on that score. "Baker Street can be bugged by anyone, Mycroft is an entirely different matter. I'm somewhat alarmed. Alarmed and impressed."  Realizing just what Jim had heard to convince him that such a relationship existed, he shook his head as if trying to shake off this new information entirely.

"Some things can't be deleted, Jim.”

"I can assure you it really was the _last_ thing I wanted to see,” Jim shuddered. He had collected himself by now and took Sherlock's compliment. “I am the best in the world at what I do for a reason," he said with a wink. "Now that I've ruined any remaining good associations you had with your brother, would you like to continue your game? I promise, I have no idea who anyone else is shagging. Cross my heart. Well, that might not add much credence to that, would it? Anyway, I promise. Who's next?"

"Yes, and it wasn't at _all_ what you were meant to do. I was asking for what a given person’s type might be, not specifics. Particularly, _that_ specific information." Sherlock decided he would dwell on it no more and would never voluntarily think of it again. Except in cases where it should prove useful against either of them, Lestrade or Mycroft, naturally. He purposefully picked someone difficult and someone who could well be bedding anyone she liked without his caring.  Returning to the game, he straightened a leg and crossed another one loosely over it. He couldn't quite keep a straight face while doing it but he thought carefully and jutted out a shoulder slightly, turning to bring it under his chin. A smirk, not condescending, but wicked. He'd learned to form those rather recently. Eyes forward, hooded occasionally by a long blink. Irene was easy to get in bed, provided one had something she wanted, but what she really wanted, what would actually seduce the seductress, that would be interesting to learn. A long, slow drag on the cigarette and then a slow, slow exhalation punctuated with the arch of an eyebrow.

Jim thought for a moment. Irene was a tricky one. She was like them, intelligent and easily bored. She'd kept herself occupied by trying to figure out the secrets of the wealthy and powerful by beating them in bed. She liked it, found it interesting, but someone submissive would hardly be her cup of tea when it came to her own desire. Further complicated by the fact that, other than Sherlock, her preferences were almost entirely female. In the end, Jim tried to imagine what it would take for someone to seduce her, and once he worked it out, it was simple. He sharpened his features, becoming every inch an alpha in the room, regardless of gender. Someone who wandered in and owned. Someone who could go toe to toe with her, someone who would be a _joy_ for her to break apart, but, unknowingly, would manage to chip away at her as well. He looked at ‘her’ like he was only bored, like ‘she'd’ have to _do_ , before shooting Sherlock a devastatingly charming smile. It was wolfish, promising long nights and decadence. An experienced dance partner looking for someone to put on the dance card for the evening. He let his eyes smolder, burning into 'Irene's', his smile not quite touching them. His voice was throatier, smokier. "It's all just so boring, isn't it? Care to join me for something that isn't?" He asked, raising his eyebrows in expectation of response.

Sherlock dropped the pose and raised an eyebrow, this time interested and not seductive. "Well, that’s cheating,” he chided. "That was a little too close to home to be an impressive display of skill." He smoked again, this time in his usual way. Jim had produced a more seductive middle-ground between Jim as he was and the way Moriarty had been. It was the air of someone who owned the world, who could keep up after a lifetime of only rarely being kept up with, and the unsubtle suggestion that such a man was interested in a game of determining dominance. He knew it to be too close to the mark because that aura might not have only worked on Irene, but was rather interesting to Sherlock as well, playing to both of their similarities.

"You've slept with women before, surely,” Sherlock asked. “With her? Or, Molly?”

"Well what did you expect? She was attracted to you after all, and, surprisingly, to Sebastian of all people. Probably the whole larger than life ego and pretty faces," Jim considered. He pulled a face at Sherlock's question. "Oh, neither of them, surely," he replied. "When I was in university I was curious," he admitted, and then shook his head. Flashes of pale skin and curves and breasts flashing before his eyes. "Not that Molly didn't give it her best efforts." He remembered the mind-numbing nights at her flat, watching some insipid show or another before she latched herself to his neck and he found himself with a lap full of Molly. Jim would always play it off as best he could and find some excuse to escape from the situation, citing work as a cause.

“Molly has a type." Sherlock agreed.

He understood, having been on the receiving end of her small, but overt and often cloying advances. Jim’s off-handed statement did put him in mind of a curiosity Sherlock had had, though, and so he chose his next role. He had little frame of reference for this person, but was interested in how much Jim had shown or not shown him. He'd give it his best effort, he decided. A military man, so he raked his hair back as much as he could. Large, that had been made abundantly clear, so he sat straight-backed to emphasize his height. It'd be no fun to tease at him with all those names if he actually enjoyed it, so he was more serious than Jim, probably sullen, thus he frowned. A man who sought to kill for others, who was apparently a talented sniper. Sharp eyed, then, a note of warning even while he was still. He imbued in his muscles a sort of tension that betrayed restlessness when not engaged in what he felt was his purpose. _That_ part of the act he borrowed from a certain someone he knew.

"Sir.” He acknowledged, with a curt nod, guessing that perhaps he'd kept the military title of respect. Not too many words to show the accent, but one similar to Mycroft's from his breeding and schooling.

Sebastian Moran. Jim had to give it to Sherlock. For someone who had never met Seb, he did a good job impersonating him without knowing any of his quirks. Jim scowled and almost wanted to call off the game, but insisted and pressed forward anyway. "This one's likely going to be frightfully easy," Jim warned. Sebastian was withdrawn, years at war had done that. He was efficient and brutal, never asked questions, but _always_ had some comment to make. He had a short fuse and couldn't tolerate not having something to do. Sebastian looked like he was moving a million miles a minute even when he was stock still, and Jim had never seen a person as capable of going still as Sebastian Moran. Jim knew that deep down, not only was Sebastian his loyal employee, but he would have also been willing to bed Jim at a moment's notice. However,  it wouldn't be the Jim that Sherlock had known or even Moriarty as he’d seen earlier. It was Jim on the high from a spectacular murder, a wonderful plot that had gone their way. Almost crazed, mocking in his gratuitous affection. Sebastian liked being kept slightly off-kilter, never knowing what to expect next. He loosened his limbs, let himself draw up the memories of a particularly good evening, eyes glittering and wild but with a hint of danger. His smile was over the top, but glinted with something vicious underneath. A predator charming its prey, but letting the prey take control... for now. It was taunting and maddening, but Sebastian responded to it, and Jim had used it more than once to get what he wanted.

"Oh, _tiger_. Always so formal. You needn't always be, you know. Sometimes, informal is better. Sometimes it's even better to be down right _casual_ ," he purred, leaning forward, slightly edging into Sherlock’s personal space. He let his accent and his voice chirp and dance, twisting playfully like a piece of ribbon, once tossed, fluttering to the ground.

Sherlock drew back ever so slightly when Jim came close with that look and he could immediately begin to guess at the sorts of things that bound the two. Jim’s response was obvious in retrospect, a confirmation of what had been dancing at the back of Sherlock's mind, but was still somewhat uncomfortable. He could suddenly understand the suspicion he was eyed with sometimes when he celebrated a new murder to solve. But, it seemed more than the act, though, as though some tinge of anger really did lay behind those eyes Jim was making. Had he done something wrong? The scowl implied that Jim had not been pleased and it was hardly likely due to a poor imitation, given that Sherlock had never met the man. Perhaps, Sherlock flattered himself, it was too good an impersonation of the wrong person. Perhaps Jim was dishonest in being so dismissive about the possibility of something between him and Moran.

"I see," he said, simply. Furthermore, after reflection, he knew exactly what he'd done wrong. Because there was one common acquaintance between them that had not been accounted for and he would positively not do. They were similar after all, and to hell with fairness. Just because Sherlock had thoughtlessly played with Jim's Moran absolutely did not mean that he would allow the game to extend to his own.

Jim allowed the act to drop and sat back watching Sherlock suss together why that had made him uncomfortable. There really was one elephant in the room, one woolly sweatered, tea-obsessed doctor suspiciously absent from their little game. He could do it. It wouldn't be that hard to piece together what John Watson like. It was the side of Sherlock Holmes that didn't overlap with him. Perhaps coins weren't the best explanations of Jim and Sherlock. They were like Venn Diagrams, two circles that, in their instance, almost completely overlapped. The slivers of Jim that fell outside of them were those that enticed Sebastian. It would stand to reason those that excited John Watson were the edges of Sherlock. It really wouldn't be tricky to give himself over to the baritone laughter, the shyness and awkwardness that Jim didn't posses when faced with something outside his element. Jim could be both the quietly poised, ever confident, detective and the brokenly human Sherlock that John desperately wanted to admire, coddle, and fix. He really could, but how would Sherlock react? What look would he have in his eyes that was missing from what they'd done so far? He took a deep breath and instead went back to himself. Just Jim.

"Even I'm not that cruel, Sherlock," he said quietly.

Sherlock was somewhat taken aback by the response so perfectly in answer to his own thoughts. As if he'd said them all aloud, just as he sometimes had the habit of doing to other people. He loathed to be so transparent, particularly in this regard, but he begrudgingly appreciated that Jim did not force him to continue and play a part that both he and Jim only suspected might be true one day but that Sherlock had caught himself aching would be. Even wishing for anything different at all with John seemed distant, as though he had wanted it dimly, ages ago.

The phone had ceased buzzing but Sherlock didn't need to look to know who it was, an innocent text, entirely normal in content, but likely sent after feeling him missing in the flat, a text that betrayed how they'd grown unused to being apart suddenly and without warning.

Aware of how futile it was to allege he had no idea of what cruelty Jim had spared him, Sherlock tried to save face. "Some boring, conventional woman, no doubt. Not the best way to show off your talents, I'm afraid.” He finished the cigarette with a few, urgent puffs, pointedly avoiding looking at Jim.

Jim crawled from the bed and stood up, padding to Sherlock's coat and pulling the phone from Sherlock's coat pocket before flinging it into Sherlock’s lap.

"Here," he said bluntly, his temper flaring. "I'm taking a shower. Please do manage to be exceptionally boring and conventional for him, _dear_. Surely a better use of your... talents. Go ahead. Give him a good show.” He turned on his heel without another word and walked into the bathroom. He turned the shower on as hot as it would go before diving in and enjoying the prickling heat needling into his well worn-out muscles.

It was him, of course. John was often his cleverest under two circumstances: when the pressure was on, his heart was throbbing, and it was a matter of being clever or failing lethally like in his professional pursuits. Alternatively, he was sometimes cleverer still when he didn't realize how cleverly he was lying to himself, like when he announced that his sister had successfully stopped drinking and had semi-knowingly avoided anything which would tell even him that she had plainly not. This was the latter occasion, Sherlock suspected. John had chosen some mundane thing that one would be justified in telling a friend on holiday and could easily be construed as merely being considerate. John had left food behind, he claimed, and he was off to see some woman, though Sherlock knew there was no woman, currently. Instead, there was only John's transparent hope that his text would result in a text back from Sherlock, proving he was alive and had his phone with him. And, Jim? Jim was angry and accusing him of the worst crime of all to him: being boring.

Though he had been doing his best to avoid looking at Jim, sensing that the situation had become uncomfortable, he’d let his eyes trail after him as he’d stalked off. The anger seemed to crackle in his wake, in a different, embittered way than the scowl at the mention of Moran or even the violent kiss downstairs betrayed. At least then, he had continued to entertain Sherlock’s presence; now he'd evidently sought some excuse to remove himself. He fiddled with the phone as he considered whether he had overstayed his welcome, whether this was not the way these things were done, but that did not seem to merit this sort of outburst. Was that it, then? Was this merely a man given to unreasoning outbursts without explanation, there’d certainly been evidence of that in the past. Only to the most casual observer, he countered himself as quickly as he’d thought it. An explosive temper only served to make Jim _seem_ dangerous, as meticulous as he was, he could hardly be so irrational in actuality. Perhaps the text had pulled him out of the situation, perhaps the text had made Jim see that the entire thing was a ludicrous thing to do in the the first place. However, that did not fit either. After all, Jim had very much been the instigator. It stretched credibility too much to believe he would not have considered the aftermath.

Jim had said it would be cruel to impersonate John, cruel to confront Sherlock with the idea that John sometimes seemed simultaneously attracted to him and repelled by the notion of being attracted to him. He’d said so, because he knew. He could see it as plainly as Sherlock had, and it had infuriated him to be reminded of John at home. It had infuriated Jim because…because of what? It hadn’t infuriated him in the car, in the car he’d been nothing but derisive of the whole thing, but now.... Sherlock stopped fiddling with the phone suddenly as he chased after the revelation impending in his mind. Sex was the only discernible difference between then and now. Sex, that was it. Was that it? The first suspect in a murder. Always the lover. Always.

Jim was jealous.

And that was both entirely rational and irrational, understandable and completely unexpected, utterly normal and easily the most bizarre thing that he could conceive of, all at once. His head whipped around to the sound of the shower being shut off, and even the brusque way the water was turned off spoke to the state in which Jim might emerge. He had solved the problem, come to the answer, but had little time to decide what then to do with the solution. Was he right? He wanted to know if he was right, not entirely for unselfish reasons. If he were right, would he survive staying in the room to meet Jim? The train of thought that had led him to the conclusion seemed to imply otherwise. So, Sherlock opted for what he considered his best option, pressed for time as he was. In lieu of any other ideas, he padded out of bed and went for his clothes, dressing hurriedly.

Jim was being stupid and childish, he knew that. Of course he did. Fuck, what in the hell sort of game were they playing at really? If he'd believed in God, he was sure the bastard would be laughing at him now. He was Jim Moriarty. He killed people. He was good at being not just bad, but evil. And it was likely that part of him that would ultimately push Sherlock away. Perhaps if it had been different.... No. That's not a path to go down. Alternate realities wouldn't make him feel any better, any less like there was a ravenous pit put in place of his belly. It would have been foolish of him to not name this as what it was--jealousy. It was sharp, acidic on its edges, burning and boring a hole in his flesh. It would always be _them_ and Baker Street, always. It would always be John. That stung more than it should.

He let the shower lull him for a few moments, the heat almost scalding his skin before shutting it off and toweling off, making use of one of those giant, soft robes he'd had his eye on since he'd gotten here. Sherlock was dashing about, gathering his clothing, his shirt already half on. Jim watched him for a moment and leaned against the doorway between the bedroom and bath. "It's always going to be him, isn't it?" He asked to Sherlock’s back.

Sherlock’s hands briefly froze at the button he was doing up before he recovered and continued. "What does it matter?"

That was the million pound question. Jim shrugged, happy that Sherlock had chosen to stay facing away from him. Evasion was easier this way. “It’sa fucking waste.”

Sherlock scoffed as he finished buttoning his shirt and instead focused on adjusting his cuffs. “The question stands.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I was just wondering how much whiskey you think it’s going to take before he can bear to touch you,” Jim said, flippantly.

Though he had every intention to go, at this last statement, Sherlock turned around. Too intrusive of Jim, too vulgar, too cruel now when he said he wouldn’t be earlier, but worst of all, too close to the mark to ignore.

At first, he merely stared wide-eyed, outraged and unused to admitting this sort of thing out loud. “You, of all people, can hardly stand to be so self-righteous. John believes human emotion escapes me, and it may, but you know me far too well to believe that I missed that scowl you couldn't hide when I dared mention your precious tiger." He rattled off suddenly with the best counterargument he could muster, much as he did with particularly vicious deductions and punctuated it with a sharp, "Let's not pretend we don't understand."   

Jim held his composure, letting Sherlock be vicious, letting him snap and snarl all while calmly watching his temper dissolve. It wasn't Jim’s usual style. Generally, when he lost his temper it was molten, burning and incinerating everything in its path. That wouldn't cut as deep as remaining completely composed would. "I don't see how a question can be self-righteous. Sebastian and I understand. There's no confusion in our relationship. During the game, you brought him up to goad me, and then got tense and angry when you realized your own, stupid mistake and how vulnerable it left you," he retorted, perfunctorily.

Jim dared remain calm and explain it all to him coolly, and Sherlock utterly loathed the way he was being spoken to.  It hit the exact buttons that had infuriated him ever since he was a child and had to grow up with the ever-so calm elder brother talking down to him. His face twisted into a scowl. "If you understand all of it so well, then why be angry in the first place?"

“Because it _is_ such a waste. Don’t you get it?” Jim still wasn’t furious, instead keeping his temper in check as he continued. He moved forward now, going through the motions of getting dressed as he talked, each word slipping out like honeyed poison. “You hope one day it’s you he drags upstairs? Sighs your name into your ear? What things are you going to have to write off as things he just can’t handle because it reminds him you’re a man? Just so he can better forget how narrow your hips are and forget to want tits? Better yet, how much of you is going to be left after you’ve sanitized your own personality so it’s something John can stomach? How many years of it are you in for, Sherlock? Do you even know?” Jim chuckled softly, as he deftly buttoned first his trousers and then his shirt, not even bothering to follow Sherlock with his eyes. “You think because you’re so singular, so unique, you can change all that. Well, you’ve had two years, and still I doubt you’re much beyond where you started, frantically fisting your own cock in the dark of your own room alone.” He went to the mirror, fixing his hair and trying not to smirk at Sherlock’s utterly flabbergasted expression. “Do you know the cruelest part?” He asked, voice light. “It will end. He will leave because ultimately, someone will come along, and he will leave you there in Baker Street, starving and desperate. Why waste your time? Why the hell expend all that energy? For what? John Watson’s _scraps_? Is that it, sweetheart? _That_ is what it is, Sherlock. And, you’re a fool for thinking otherwise.”

Sherlock watched as Jim ambled about the room as though this were in not the slightest any deviation from his usual routine. He became aware of how foolish he looked as he met eyes with Jim’s reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t for lack of anything to respond with, rather, it was that he was in the midst of feeling that which he so rarely truly felt. He was often scolded by John, and Sherlock sulked in response, but ultimately bore no grudges. He was often condescended to by Mycroft, but he was dismissive and intentionally childish, then and ignored Mycroft far too effectively to feel anything in response. Anderson’s taunts, and indeed existence, was met with exasperation, but this, this was different. This was an anger he had not experience in recent memory and it left with him too much he wanted to say, all vying to be said first. “You’re wrong.” He eventually growled, lowly, holding on to the edges of frayed restraint. “You only think you understand, but you don’t.” He wasn’t sure if his knees really were shaking in fury or it was merely his perception but he continued, “Only you would interpret it as something so coarse, only you would misunderstand and cheapen it so. ‘It’s always going to be him.’ And if it is? And if there’s never anything more between us? What then? I’m not ‘giving up’ anything, I’m not ‘sanitizing’ anything, I….” He breathed deeply, only then realizing he hadn’t breathed at all since he began answering him, “I am better with him.”

Jim cackled as he hunted for his misplaced cufflinks. “But don’t you see, Sherlock? How sad John would be to realize just how little what you do is about other people, about helping them, saving them?” He looked back over his shoulder. “You do it to escape boredom, not out of a sense of goodness. So don't stand there, Sherlock Holmes, and pretend to distance yourself from the truth. Never forget that as well as you know me, I know you," he said, dismissively.

Sherlock forced himself to laugh humorlessly in return. "You tease and you blackmail. 'How sad John will be,'" He mocked back, venomously, "You know me well, do you? I don't claim to be angelic, surely even you've heard that enough by now to understand." It was false, entirely. Sherlock knew very well how not stupid this man was but he phrased it so anyway, he was so used to undercutting people by insulting their intelligence.

Jim narrowed his eyes, his hands beginning to trembling slightly. "I play the game. I play the game we both play. Digging in at one another. Don't be angry because I do it better than you, so well you have to resort to the way you talk to average people. Actually… the way you talk to John," he said, brightening and smiling venomously.

"I _am_ better with him." He repeated, and even his mouth was quivering, twisting toward and away from a proper snarl. He didn't clarify whether he meant 'better with him than with you,' or 'better than myself alone,' and he did not hear how for granted he took the part about 'with' him.

"Oh, please. You're really not. You're just a vicious dog with a muzzle. That doesn't change the character of the dog." He caught the double meaning Sherlock was inferring and felt the rage slam into his brain. He turned, crossing the room to step close enough to bite Sherlock’s throat out, if needed. "Well, Sherlock, I suppose you will never know that will you, hmm? Because at the end of the day, you will likely never know the man you would have been _with_ John Watson." He looked up, eyes still burning into Sherlock's daring, him forward.

The anger rose and heated Sherlock’s neck and made him feel almost light-headed. "Thank you." He said, unflinching at Jim’s approach.  "I should thank you. For teaching me, _professor_." He stepped closer to Jim and it seemed a more intimate invasion of space than when they'd been curled around each other earlier. "Everything I need to know.” He tilted his head in false confusion, as though he were making sure he’d memorized the ‘steps’ correctly. “I’ll treat him to a weekend in Paris, shall I? Or, merely wait until he’s at dinner and then seize him?  I _am_ nothing if not a quick study, isn't that so? Isn’t that the way to make someone unwilling capitulate to...to _this_ ,” he spat out in disgust. He had no practice exploiting jealousies this way and did not know how truly petty he was being by resorting to the extremely pedestrian threat. He'd have been disgusted with anyone else who might have done the same, but even he knew he was not a man of self-awareness.

Jim sat back on his heels. "You were one of those children growing up, weren't you? The ones that wanted to play, told you the game, and then changed the rules when they weren't to suit. You play tit for tat until you can't take it anymore. You wanted it all until you didn’t anymore, isn’t _that_ so?" He stepped forward again, not frightened that Sherlock was now standing, looming over him. He'd stared down bigger. "You want the truth, Sherlock? Will that make it better for you? I _am_ jealous and, God fucking help me, I _do_ care. Is that what you wanted to hear? I am in every conceivable way your equal and you don't care." His rage now took on a tone of frustration. "Don't you see the writing on the wall, Sherlock?”

"In fact, I do not.” He seized his coat and thrust his arms into the sleeves, arranging his collar as he turned to make his exit. “I'll trust you won't kill me before I manage to get to the airstrip? Before I go home?"

"You know that none of this is fair. I had no idea what this was going to be then, Sherlock,” Jim retorted.

“ _This?”_ He hissed, turning back towards Jim for what he fully intended to be the last time “What is _this?_ What gives you the right to be angry about John? What’s done is done. Didn’t you yourself say you don’t deny yourself anything? I’ve collected my data and you got what you plainly wanted. What _this_ could there possibly be?” He said, deliberately ignoring the irrefutable parts of what Jim had said.  

"This could be everything, you idiot!” Jim shouted before reigning himself back in. “I’m offering you an alternative.”

Sherlock reared back slightly. “What?” He asked, flatly. The question was almost rhetorical, said rather because he could find nothing else to say at hearing what he only suspected so plainly laid out. “This is unlike you...” He said, more quietly now with only the barest hint of a scoff, “...to let sentiment cloud your reason.”

“It’s unlike _both_ of us. The only reason you know so is because it holds true for you, and thus, you can apply the same reasoning to me,” Jim retorted. “Think. You’ve at once stated and ignored the obvious. If it’s unlike me to let sentiment cloud my reason, then what must I be trying to say, Sherlock?”

Sherlock couldn’t help but roll his eyes; he sounded just as he must have each time he impatiently guided a student through an elaborate proof. Perhaps, in its own confirmation of what he was saying, Jim sounded for all the world like Sherlock himself walking other people through the obvious particulars of a case. His general approach to Jim _was_ to extrapolate from what he himself would do before trying to account for the variances, and this, he realized was not how he went about trying to understand what anyone else did.

“And? Yes, we’re similar, you and I. Easily granted,” he said, still sharp from their tempers having flared. “Somehow, you’re utterly failing to  consider how meaningless that is in light of everything else.”

“No, Sherlock. _You’re_ failing to realize how utterly meaningless everything else is in light of _this_. You can try to tell yourself it’s always going to be him, and you’ve done a good enough job deluding yourself into that way of thinking, but you and I know it’s not quite true. If it were, you wouldn’t be here.”

He was faltering more, and at least they weren't at each other's throats anymore, but the cracks in his defense were the cracks through which Jim seeped in.  But the miserable uncertainty involved in everything, that was what was driving him mad, putting these parts of him at war with each other.

"I should want to be what he'd like. A good man. Not a muzzled dog, as it were."

"Wanting isn't being, Sherlock. And being good all the time? That'd be just as disingenuous as me being the evil mastermind all the time," he shook his head. "You can try. Hell, you might manage a good go at it, but you'd always, always have to deny parts of yourself. Not even bad parts, just parts that aren't 'good,'" he paused for a moment, going closer to Sherlock. "Maybe you should want to be like that, but maybe it's more important to want to be yourself. Can you really be yourself with John? Not the watered down version, but all of it. Well and truly yourself?"

"And what, in your estimation, is it that John wants?" He shrugged and ignored Jim’s question in favor of his own. "You know perfectly well, I imagine. You were going to do it earlier."

"He wants what he imagines you were," Jim stated cryptically. "John looks at you and he sees what you were before you locked away feeling and sentiment and sensuality. That's what he wants. Those unguarded parts of you. Maybe with time you could learn to give those to him, Sherlock, I don't know, but in the process you'll give up parts of who you _are_ now for who you _were_ then. And, he'll grow frustrated with you when you’re incapable of doing so. I’m no soothsayer. I can’t tell you how that will end, but I can tell you this,” he fought for the words to convey this to Sherlock. "John Watson is a perfectionist. He was in the military; he's a doctor. He likes order. He likes chaos because it's a way in which for him to set things right. It feeds not only his compulsion for perfection but also makes him feel like he's doing good, being a savior. Plainly, he's in this to save you, Sherlock.”

“I don't want codependency, and face it, that's what you and John have.  I want an equal, someone who drives me to the brink of insanity, someone who knows just how to cut me, just how to please me, just like I know the same about him. That's what I want, and you’re the only person who fits the bill."

Without any direct prompting from Jim, the pieces fell together for Sherlock, as they so often did, in the form of an unbidden memory. John had once hidden cigarettes from Sherlock in an effort to get him to quit. Embarrassingly, Sherlock had played along with John and begged him to tell him where the cigarettes were; how easily they'd fallen into their assigned parts. Sherlock, addicted to the attention, pretended he couldn't suss out immediately where the cigarettes were, pretended he needed to cajole John into letting him have them. John, addicted to other addicts, pretended to believe, or, perhaps truly convinced himself, that Sherlock couldn't just buy his own pack of cigarettes or find where his were. Together, they filled each other's perceived needs beautifully but in doing so forced each other to continue playing along.

So, he would have gone home to John, perhaps told him about how he'd been manipulated into Jim's bed and John would rail at him for going alone and walk out. But perhaps John would come back and perhaps Sherlock might seem so broken by the experience that it would offer John just the sort of battlefield to come and rescue him from. Rescue him with affection and gentleness, and then from there...John’s character wouldn't allow him to fall into bed with him right then, but eventually, perhaps John would consent to fixing him and then perhaps John would stay with him, the way he never did with the insufficiently broken women he courted in an attempt to be more normal. But, if it even worked, if manipulating John into it even stood a chance of working, the entire thing would be built on pretense like the ones he and Jim had mocked in bed not an hour earlier. And, truth be told, it was both alarming and exhausting to find himself in the midst of considering how best to maneuver himself and John into bed together. It was manipulative, it was something he had claimed he had no idea how to do, it was something he would have believed of Jim. Even having considered it was, wretchedly, proof positive of what Jim had said all along.

“Then?” Sherlock said, the entire matter seeming hopeless from each angle he considered. “What becomes of us? You come clean at the Yard and I ask for conjugal visits? The whole thing is an exercise in futility.”

“This is why I’m the criminal mastermind,” Jim rolled his eyes. “Do you think I don’t have exit strategies? I could melt into the shadows tomorrow without a trace. Do you think I’m unwilling to do it for you?”

“Then, you would ask me to leave everything behind and dedicate myself to whatever it is that you do?”

“Yes,” Jim said, simply. He’d not elaborate further. If this was something Sherlock wanted, he needed to make his own mind up without any further needling. He shook his head at the second part of Sherlock’s statement. “Nooo, I don’t want you to play John, Sherlock. I want an equal, a partner. You needn’t get involved in anything that I do.”

“No,” Sherlock agreed, a touch sarcastically, “I should merely turn a blind eye to all the ‘fantastic murders’ you were regaling me with at dinner.”

“Be a chemist, continue solving mysteries under a different name, anything. I just want you. Full stop.” Jim considered a moment before continuing. “I’m willing to give that up for you. I can keep occupied with bloodless crimes just as well. If I’m not misinterpreting, those don’t seem to tweak your fledgling sense of morality. But, if I’m giving that up, I need assurance that you’re not going to be half here and half at Baker Street. I’ll not be his replacement, Sherlock.”

Sherlock had to agree on that point. In truth, he did not care about the sorts of things Jim was offering to turn to, could easily think of several situations where he had no qualms with a murder for morality’s sake. He nodded, agreeing silently with that part of the conversation. “You want me to leave home, then, in return,” Sherlock stated tentatively. If he was going to contemplate this, it was best to have their respective stipulations out openly.    

“No, I don’t mean literally, Sherlock.” He put his hand to the side of his face as he thought out loud. “Granted it will be a bit of work if we keep it in London. I can hardly spend nights at Baker Street, and your brother would eventually grow curious as to where you were going all the time. But, I’ve been evading Mycroft Holmes for ages now. It could be done.” He approached Sherlock now, for the first time reaching out to touch him that wasn’t in the heat of the moment. He reached for Sherlock's chin, tilting it down so that he might meet his eyes completely. “I mean, I want you here mentally with me. If we go through with this, I don't want to play months or years worth of what if's with you. If you come, I need to know it's completely. I'm not wearing another mask for you.”

Sherlock could understand that, too; he was too possessive of other people's attentions to not understand. He allowed himself to be handled and did meet eyes with Jim before turning his gaze off to the side. He tried in vain to poke holes in his own acceptance of Jim's logic, searched for any reason to not do this and found none.“Let’s leave,” Sherlock said, abruptly. “I could be missing for a little longer. It’s only been a day.”

Jim heard Sherlock say the word ‘leave’ and his stomach faltered a little before he realized that Sherlock meant the both of them, leaving together. Jim nodded. "Yeah, that's fine. Anywhere. Where would you like to go? Surely your excuse buys you a couple days without suspicion?" He thought for a moment. "I won't make your mind up for you, but at least allow me to show you what it can be like with me, what it will be like with me before you dash away from it."

Sherlock eventually nodded slowly. "You can pick, I have my preference, but ultimately it doesn't matter." Between the two of them, they could likely even make London work, though it wasn't his first choice. He sighed, he was always going to be under suspicion from Mycroft, even if not of this precisely. To be shown what it would be like together was exactly what Sherlock wanted. To familiarize himself with what he was like without restraints and the unending pressure to play his part, the constant failing at other's expectations of him. Not to mention that this was the chance to become truly acquainted with what Jim was like beyond just a day spent together and half-spent at each others' throats. This still was a risky venture, for both of them, he supposed. "Where are you from, James Moriarty? Specifically. That's my preference."

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!!! PLEASE READ. 
> 
> Hello, readers. So, this has been tagged since the beginning, but I feel like you need a proper warning now. In this chapter, Jim talks in a fair amount of detail about childhood sexual abuse. After this chapter, there may be references to it, but never again is it described by him as a survivor in express terms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow us on Tumblr!](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/westwoodandridingcrops/let-s-be-kings-ch-7) for Chapter Seven.

"Christ, that's much better than that swill at the hotel."

Jim handed a tumbler of whiskey to Sherlock to taste and settled himself into one of the plush chairs beside of Sherlock. The spring air had been cool when they’d slipped out of the car and into the waiting plane, but luckily the interior of the cabin was warm. Things were comfortable now, not only in the airplane, but also between the two of them. Any sense of rage had dissipated as they slowly got dressed and Jim gathered his things, handing Sherlock his own phone so that Sherlock could tell a rather fearful administrative assistant what his measurements were and what clothing brands he prefered.

Sherlock gulped down some of what he'd been poured and sighed afterwards. He wasn't one much for liquor but even he could taste the difference between this and what he'd drunk at the hotel. He swirled and sipped a little more, enjoying the burn of the much stronger whiskey. "This isn't pleasurable, exactly. It hurts as much as it is enjoyable." He set the glass down, not imagining why someone would actively seek out drinking this particular brand of liquor. Then again, he'd given himself plenty of nosebleeds and painful needle jabs in order to get high, so in a sense he understood the general idea. "I was only ever really an addict for that brief time in uni. The other times I've been a casual user of a frowned upon substance. Much like your drinking, I imagine." He guessed. "You have an appreciation for alcohol, and can drink heavily if you like, but you never drink like your father."

“Father? Who said anything about a drunk father?” Jim asked.

Sherlock smirked. “You hardly needed to.”

“Always clever,” Jim said. It could have been a bitter statement from anyone else, but from Jim it was nothing but praise. “Well, not really any point in hiding it from you. My father drank himself to death to no one's great surprise and, frankly, to none of my sorrow. Da never knew when to stop with anything. When he was happy, he was happy, when he wasn't, nothing would console him except drinking until he couldn't remember to feel or think in the first place. My mother died shortly after giving birth to my younger brother." Jim had spent a childhood with addiction, and thinking of his father reminded him of something else.

“I have but one further stipulation,” he added.

“Go on,” Sherlock prompted.

“No coke. I can put my hands on kilos of the stuff and I won’t have you dipping into it.”

“Surely, I could purchase my own.”         

“You certainly could. But remember, I told you. I want you here with me. Not strung out. It's strange, though… You don't have an addictive personality, not really," Jim mused. "John's much worse than you in that respect. You have addictions but you didn't start them out of a compulsion to do them, did you? I bet you used hard drugs before you even smoked your first cigarette. You used to keep your brain quiet, to make it better, and then you started smoking because some junkie offered it to you. Plus, It was an easy way to annoy the piss out of your brother," Jim stated, tilting his head curiously.

 "No, indeed, I don't. So, I keep telling everyone.” Sherlock said, agreeing with Jim’s dismissal of his ‘addictive personality.’ “I haven't been a proper non-functional addict in very long. I only really resort to it in times of boredom. Take that as you will.” Sherlock emphasized,  “When I’m not bored, I don’t use,” he said, meaningfully.

"I smoked because, when I did develop an itch, it was a way to help scratch it in public. Also...” Sherlock continued answering the barrage of questions from Jim with his own list of statements. “You can't deny it looks cool. John, on the other hand...” he babbled along, chasing after an alternate train of thought. “...if he's extremely frustrated or angry, or recently seen a woman, I catch him smelling like smoke. But, his addiction is mainly other addicts." He punctuated the series of statements with a shrug as if to say, 'what can you do?’

"I suppose there is something to be said about a pretty man smoking a cigarette," Jim drawled, staring pointedly at Sherlock before changing gears entirely. "It is strange that John is so blind to that. He's addicted to saving other people from their addictions. He's got a family member who has an addiction, doesn't he? I notice all the signs. He reminds me of my brother, the one who disapproves of me. He never could cope with Da's drinking. Never realized it was his decision to make, his life to lose."

Sherlock’s little shrug put Jim in mind of dropping his head down on one of those shoulders, but he fought the urge and instead leaned back, his head resting in the comfortable head rest as the plane took off and slipped into the night.

"I mean to smoke like a chimney while I'm away from home. If the sight pleases you, you're likely to see it often." Sherlock rested back onto the headrest himself and closed his eyes. He was beginning to feel tired, the lack of sleep catching up to him. He blinked wearily at Jim’s supposition. "His sister. She drinks. He is the sensible one, or at least the one who has had most success in putting his addictions to good use. We are disappointing children; you, me, and the Watson sister."

Watching Jim adjust closer and then readjust farther away minutely out of the periphery of his vision, he snorted mockingly. "Just lean on me if you want to so badly."

"Bastard," Jim grumbled good naturedly before following Sherlock's order and leaning against him, head resting on his shoulder. "I'm never going to get one past you," Jim grumbled.  It shouldn't bother him, this little act of intimacy, not after what they'd just spent the greater part of the evening doing to one another, but this was different. This was just the two of them, no sex, just wanting to touch him in some innocent way. He relaxed into Sherlock, the wool of his Belstaff soft and far more comfortable than the head rest. "We are the disappointments of our families, aren't we?" He mused. "It's sort of freeing to accept that about yourself. Once you've done that, you realize you can do whatever in the fuck you want to. At least, that's been my experience with it."

"Provided your brother is not the embodiment of a sizable portion of many English-speaking governments in the world," Sherlock added, allowing himself to be settled into. "It is freeing. Not caring what anyone else thinks, or who might think you're a bastard, as you say. Which, of course, I am not."

"Mm, suppose that is where we differ then. I get to do what I want because I don't give a damn, and also because I have a sizable portion of many English-speaking governments by the bollocks. Probably makes it a touch easier." He could just see Sherlock at twenty something dashing circles around his brother always a step ahead of him, never wanting to be tamed or corralled.

"Oh?" Sherlock quipped. "You have the English government by the bollocks?" He almost snorted with laughter, "Then, you should be on the look out for one grey-haired detective, jealously seeking retribution." He grew a little more serious.

"If we’re going to start establishing the ‘rules,’” he said in reference to Jim’s earlier stipulations about his drug use, and not without some distaste, “I should say that we don't have to start with your own businesses, but you _will_ shut down your murder and torture division. Alternately, you could allow me to. Regardless, I'd still like my man from Brussels."

"It's easy enough for me to do it. All it would take is a half a dozen phone calls," Jim drawled, almost lazily. “I'll spin it in my circles to look like I was ready to leave those parts of my business behind and let you take them, all part of lulling you into a false sense of security.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and looked down at him. "Awfully in character, aren't we?" he teased.

“Of _course_ it's in character. If I'm to keep any of my business I can't have it look like you actually beat me, not to those on the inside," Jim explained with frustration. "I'm taking you to my home, my actual home, and I'm practically swooning on your shoulder. I think you're safe, Mr. Holmes," he teased before settling back down with a dramatic plop.

Sherlock grumbled and shrugged up the shoulder Jim was 'swooning' on. "Temper, dear,” he chided sarcastically.

Jim fidgeted before finally giving up the enterprise of being on Sherlock’s shoulder altogether. It was hardly the sort of thing they did, anyway.

"Oh yes, like Sherlock Holmes doesn't have a temper, not in a million years," he said sarcastically, thinking of the fury Sherlock had worked himself into earlier. Jim leaned in then, invading Sherlock’s space. “Either way, you’re just going to have to trust me when I decide to shut things down.” Already, plans were starting to link together, but as of yet, they were still too nebulous and foggy to even be called a plan in the first place.

"Are _you_ trusting _me_? Or, are you arrogant enough to believe it wouldn’t matter if I did turn against you?" He could easily double cross him with Mycroft's help.

“Both, neither. Guess you’ll just have to pay attention to find out,” Jim said with a wink. “Though, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. In a day’s time, Jim Moriarty can cease to exist, and someone else who looks an _awful_ lot like him can be a half-a-world away teaching or researching, or whatever in the world I fancy.”

Sherlock furrowed his brow. He was having trouble picturing Jim as ever having been interested in teaching and was far more incredulous at the idea of him retiring to live any way that even approached normalcy. "But,…” He tried to contemplate how enormously consuming something would have to be to make him voluntarily give up his own work, “...why _teach_ , Jim? Mummy only taught until Mycroft was born, I think she gave it up as soon as she could, in favor of us and her writing. You couldn't possibly like your imbecilic students or belonging to the more imbecilic faculty. Is it the title?"

“I liked the topic enough that all the imbecilic students and windbag colleagues seemed worth it.” Jim laughed, “Surely, you’ve heard all of this before. I’m sure your mother complained about the same more than once. I read her book. It’s good. We’d have loads to chat about. Not that I’m at all likely to meet her.”

“No, I’d say, you most likely won’t. I _haven’t_ read it, but I can get you an autographed copy next Christmas if you’re that devoted a fan. Though, I doubt my mother would enjoy hearing about your...practical applications of her very theoretical take on combustion.” Sherlock smirked at the ridiculousness of the hypothetical, “On balance, however, explaining to Mycroft just why you’re coming to dinner might make the whole thing worth it. I’ll consider it.”

"Think about how you'll explain it all," Jim joked, mocking Sherlock's deep voice now. "It all started when Jim decided he wanted to murder me, and then abducted John and then almost ruined my brother's career. Later, he whisked me off to Paris where we shagged one another nearly to death.” He laughed, before continuing in his own voice. “I don't know what's funnier the idea of you telling the story or either of us being caught dead at a Christmas party."

Sherlock pretended to be disgusted with him. "If you're going to come to Christmas with us and tell the story to my mother, you may at least tell it right. It really started when you drowned someone in a pool and kept their shoes, as though you were, you know, a psychopath."

Jim hummed, "Suppose you're right.” He smiled wide as if he were trying to make a good impression. “And that, Mother Holmes, was the first time that Sherlock failed to catch me, but not the last,'" he said with a wink. "Christ, can you imagine the day you brought me home to sit across from your brother and Lestrade? My, my, that would be a Christmas to remember. What charming dinner conversation!" He exclaimed.

Sherlock crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow in response to his 'failure' at catching him, "If you are going to malign _my_ reputation, I should mention I was practically a child."

"And, might I add, I was a child, too, you know. Younger than you, darling dear."

“And, it's far easier to commit a crime as a child than to make any adult listen to you long enough to solve one as a child,” Sherlock retorted, ever so slightly bristling at the professional slight.  

“You have me there,” Jim admitted. “It was woefully easy to kill Carl.”      

“And woefully easy to reframe yourself as some sort of child prodigy of murder.” Sherlock dismissed flippantly. “To my knowledge, it was your first foray into crime. It couldn’t exactly have been _easy,”_ he said, reluctant to admit that it might have been easy for Jim when solving it had not been easy for himself.

“It was,” Jim said. “And, contrary to popular belief, just because I have a limited conscience and ambivalent morals doesn’t mean I don’t have a conscience at all. I just don’t have one when it comes to people like Carl.”

“What, people who laugh at you?” Sherlock scoffed, “Should I be concerned?”

Jim smiled and shook his head. “No. People who’ve wronged me and people I’m afraid of. Well, _was_ afraid of. There’s no one that frightens me anymore. Carl met both of those criteria.”

Jim’s open admission that he was ever afraid of anyone or anything, even as a child, put a quick end to Sherlock’s glibness about the whole affair. He could almost feel his train of thought slowing for a bit before it sped enough in an entirely new direction. Jim oozed confidence and laughed at the world as though nothing could touch him, justifiedly so. Of course, he had obviously not been so his whole life but the frankness of the disclosure piqued Sherlock’s interests. He was not in the habit of denying himself the pursuit of something he was curious about once a question had taken root in his mind, no matter how tactless it might be. Jim would hardly expect to be the exception to that rule, so he took the statement as an invitation to pry further. “ _You_ said he laughed at you, now you say he frightened you,” Sherlock began, “Go on.”

"Imagine a little boy visiting his aunt and uncle in London for the summer.” Jim’s voice was quiet and he stared ahead instead of making eye contact with Sherlock. “It was supposed to be about ‘broadening horizons.’ Really, it was because his mum had just died and he was in the way. He goes to London and had no idea how big and fantastic a real city could be. He's endlessly curious, and he’s quiet. Then, one day, an older cousin has his friends over. They hate the little boy because he's different. All of them, except one. Carl was smart, and he was funny, better than all the others. He decides the younger, littler, quieter boy with the funny, whispered accent would be perfect. Well, perfect for what he had in mind anyway.” He stopped for a moment, his speech even more measured than when he’d started. “I was small, and I was pretty, and I was _quiet._ Even after he was done with me, even when he came back, every time he came back. It always hurt. He always laughed at me after he was finished,” he laughed ruefully, draining the rest of his drink.

“Did you know, I was nineteen before I realized sex wasn't meant to feel like you were being skinned alive? Yeah, we have Carl to thank for that." The plane was silent as he continued, only now looking back at Sherlock. "It's not an excuse. It's not to make you feel sorry or guilty or whatever. I was always the way I am, and I always would have been what I am, but I will never apologize for killing Carl Powers. If he were in this plane right now, I'd kill him again. He didn’t turn me into what I am; he only had the misfortune of picking the wrong little boy," Jim shrugged.

Sherlock stared blankly for a long time. He wasn't a man to be overcome by sympathies, he wasn't one to coddle Jim and promise him that everything would be alright. He didn't move at all. Jim wasn't one to want that sort of thing, anyway. He decided to tread very, very carefully. So carefully, he weighed his words considerably, when he was rarely someone to do that at all. He'd seen the mutilated and battered corpses of victims of this sort of crime before and knew the pathology of sex after coercion. It had produced in Jim the conviction that sex was a feeling comparable to being flayed. He understood the injury that must have resulted, the clever child concealing the blood and the limp too well for any careless and stupid adult to pick up on it. Evidently, he _had_ been this way even as a child; Jim had carried out successfully what any other person in his situation might only ever wish to do.  Brilliant even for a man, more so for a frightened boy.

Sherlock  had questions. Mountains and mountains, whole worlds of questions. But first he had to say _something_. He pressed his lips into a line and offered the best answer that occurred to him, and perhaps one Jim would take as such.

"Futile as it is to wish in retrospect," he finally said, curtly, "...had I known you, you might have used my chemistry set." An utter fantasy, to imagine a boy like him ever meeting a boy like he'd been. Different schools, different backgrounds, no reason to suppose they'd notice each other.

Jim had never told anyone. He'd been terrified when his first boyfriend had convinced him to have sex again, and relieved when he realized how wonderful it could be. He'd decided then and there to embrace sex like everything else in life-- head on. He was afraid he would try to say some insipid apology, some inane condolence. He shouldn't have been. Sherlock said just the right thing, just the thing to pull him out of the edge and keep him from sinking in the mire of a thousand buried memories. "Hmm, likely would have made it easier for me. Bloody nightmare getting all those chemicals correct," he said with a roll of his eyes. He sank back down to cuddle on Sherlock, he supposed there really was no point in denying that was what he was doing, and if he clung a little tighter or burrowed a little more, well, that was just coincidence.

Sherlock sighed out loud. He was so relieved that, perhaps for the first time in his life, he'd managed to say something right. Not that this was like most times in his life. He supposed one of John's successes as a doctor and as the liaison between Sherlock and his clients was his deep empathy and knack for words said appropriately when he put them to good use. Here, Sherlock was dealing with one of his own, and what better way to empathize with a murderer then to express rightful approval of their justifiable murder? He reasoned further that to play at deductions with his life would not be in good taste, and truthfully, he felt no desire to prove that he could guess at any of it. But, the insatiable curiosity was not deadened by his connection to Jim, it was increased. Surely, he'd understand that. It wouldn't be telling a story to Sherlock, a story which Jim had plainly wanted to tell, if Sherlock didn't investigate the story further. It did not escape his notice that he was being held tighter. He shuffled him off his shoulder and took his coat off.

"I have questions." He said, tentatively blanketing the Belstaff over Jim's lap. Their proximity seemed to please Jim, so looking straight ahead, Sherlock slumped in his seat and dipped his shoulder a little to offer its crook back to Jim.

Jim could almost smell Sherlock's relief. He'd been worried, then. Worried about saying the wrong thing, about upsetting him, even though there was little he could have done to elicit that sort of response from Jim. He cared enough _to_ care, and that's what mattered. He'd long ago dealt with Carl Powers. The things he did to him, while always burned in his memory, no longer consumed his mind. He was momentarily confused when Sherlock broke the contact between them, but was almost instantly rewarded with a lap full of expensive wool and silk. He accepted the coat, bringing it up all the way to his chin and almost purring at it's softness. Well worn. Well loved. It smelled like London rain and Sherlock and a faint hint of tobacco. He settled back into Sherlock's shoulder and nodded.

"Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. I don't mind.”

"The shoes. A trophy?"      

"He never took off his shoes. Eventually, I got in the habit of looking down, refusing to meet his eyes, so I stared at his shoes. He loved them, cared for them. I was worth less than a pair of shoes to him. Isn't that ridiculous?” he asked. “The two things hardly go together at all, but when I did it, I wanted it to be the shoes that did him in, and I wanted to keep them as a reminder. No one would ever make me feel like that again, less than a person, less than an inanimate object." He could still see those trainers in his mind, the soundtrack of Carl's grunts and laughter and jeering all mixing in the background.

"Did you..." Sherlock tried to phrase it some other way but could not, "When you left them for me. Did you resent me for my efforts at revealing the truth?"

Jim frowned and thought. "I didn't expect you. You were an outlier I never accounted for. I'd never met anyone like me. I had no reason to believe there were other people like me. Maybe I should have resented you, but I was too fascinated. You'd seen through it, noticed their absence.”

Doubtful the entire truth would have come out,Sherlock considered. Jim's pride might have easily prevented him from revealing a motive, even one that might have helped to ameliorate his punishment. "You'd have frightened the public, a devious child murdering the athletic and promising golden boy. Poor and foreign and brilliant. If they'd managed to see it was you, you'd have been such a headline."

“I think part of me wanted to be caught,” Jim admitted. “Not for his murder, but for being weak enough to be taken advantage of in the first place. I didn't care about the attention. Not then." He chuckled. "That didn't come until later. Once I'd wrapped my head around what happened that summer I decided that it was easier to learn how to own a room than to hide in it. No one ever goes up to the guy in the middle of the room and fucks with him. No one ever tries to capture the most dazzling bird. Commanding a presence means never being owned," he explained.

“But,” Sherlock said, rapidly attempting to align this new data with what he already knew. “You recognized me, then. You must have. Otherwise, how would you have known to send me the shoes?”  

"I saw you then,” Jim answered. “I couldn’t help myself. I went back to the crime scene later. Curiosity and, if I’m honest, perhaps a bit of fear at possibly being found out, drew me back to it,” he admitted. “Of course, at the time, I had no idea it _was_ you. I didn’t know your name, just a face as you argued with the detective. You can imagine my shock when fifteen years later, here comes Sherlock Holmes, causing ripples in my ocean, each one growing bigger and stronger. Then, I realized it was you again, the same boy that I’d seen a lifetime ago. Obviously, I hadn't kept up with you since that summer, but I'd recognize that face anywhere. Funny how things work out sometimes."

_Funny how things worked out, indeed_ , Sherlock agreed privately. He thought of what else he might want to ask to better reconcile both timelines. Finding nothing else, his mind turned inexorably to the more gruesome particulars he’d ordinarily be interested. Obviously, he’d never be allowed to ask anyone else about it, but then again, it seemed precarious to ask Jim now.  

"What is it like?" He asked, turning towards Jim, when curiosity finally outweighed prudence. "Not physically." He amended quickly, though, he had his curiosities there, too.

"You likely want to know both, anyway,” Jim said, dismissing Sherlock’s attempt to be polite. “Physically? It's hard to remember now. The first time he did it, I think I fainted, I'm not sure. It's like being suffocated and lit on fire from the inside. Eventually, you learn to compartmentalize the pain, file it away, divorce yourself from it. He was always rough, and I always bled. He would tell me I was being stupid, if I'd just relax it wouldn't hurt, but I was stubborn, a child. I thought if it hurt, it meant I hadn't let him do it." He shook his head now at what had been a rather reductivist notion of what abuse was.

"It was a foolish thought,” Jim continued,  “I’ve spent too much time now at the other end of things. People value their autonomy. So much that they’ll convince themselves that any little decision they can make for themselves means they have some control of the situation. But that’s not true. It’s like a bird beating its wings against your hand when you’ve caught it, unaware that all the decisions have already been made for it. It was easier having my mind to slip away, though. Thinking about the stars or maths or whatever I wanted. That was the part of me Carl could never touch.”

Sherlock nodded in understanding. What Jim described would have been his own reaction to an attack of that nature, he thought--to disappear and separate himself from his body. He knew, of course, that victims of traumatic events sometimes described walling themselves off and then could not reliably recount the events. But, in light of Jim’s reaction and the similarities between them, he thought he understood the response as more than merely what was typical of ‘other people.’ He believed he'd have noticed a smaller boy at the crime scene, but being hurriedly ushered away from the scene and less practiced in his craft then, he might have easily believed Jim to be a relative or curious onlooker. Intrusive as it might have been, Sherlock began searching his memories of Jim’s prior words or actions for evidence of this new revelation, some way that he might have seen what he did not see until now. He searched quickly, at once puzzling over the lack of evidence and simultaneously admiring how under wraps Jim was able to keep things from even him.

“Earlier,” Sherlock said, catching hold of the barest hint he could find, “I implied I’d been coerced into what we did.” It had made Jim cross the room to confront him directly, it made an entirely different sort of sense in this context. “It wasn’t so. I shouldn’t have said, I…” He faltered, unused to anything other than the faintest of subtly implied apologies.

Jim pulled the coat up further, reveling in its warmth. "Don't worry about it. You of all people should know when I want to lay something on, I lay it on thick," he said, poking fun at himself before he looked down for a moment. "There are lots of things I've done Sherlock, but there are limits to my depravity. There are crimes I don’t touch. The human trafficking you saw in Paris is one of them. Part of the reason I thought it would be convenient for you to knock Beaulieu out of the way and out of the market," he explained. "I know that’s arbitrary of me, but so be it."

"It isn't,” Sherlock objected. He objected, but he remained privately unsure about how accurate Jim’s statement could possibly be.

Surely, at some point, the vast and complicated web that Jim ran had put someone in a similar position to the one Jim had once been in. Then again, Sherlock had his own hierarchy of crimes he cared to pursue and often refused to enmesh himself in things that did not strike him as interesting. Still, he understood more of Jim’s willingness to give him Beaulieu, and it made Sherlock’s earlier accusation of Jim being in league with that sort of criminal all the more terrible. He had already apologized once during the conversation, however, so he said nothing this time. Instead, he decisively concluded that he would see to Beaulieu’s demise as soon as he was home. For now, Sherlock felt, as he only rarely did, that he should err on the side of caution and intrude on Jim no longer. He had but one final, burning curiosity which he allowed himself to indulge being that be believed it pertained to himself as much as it did Jim.

“You don’t seem to have any sort of aversion for this sort of thing, though…”  

Jim considered Sherlock's ‘question’ for a long time. "I was mad for a long time that I'd allowed Carl to use me, but I never blamed me for it all. When I finally did have sex again, I was an adult and chose to, and it was fantastic. To let Carl control that would be giving him power in my life, power he never deserved."

“Another way to take back control, then,” Sherlock mused aloud, seeing the sense in Jim’s explanation.

Sherlock tried to think how things might have changed for himself in a similar situation but found too many dissimilarities in their upbringing to seriously scaffold the thought experiment on. It irked him slightly to admit it now, but had he been in Jim’s place, he imagined he would have done what he’d usually done when something was beyond him as a child. He’d have likely told his mother or the brother he then idolized. His mother would have brought down every conceivable method of retribution legally available to her on Powers’ head and at least then he might have had peace in that sense. He certainly didn’t envision any way in which he’d resort to the means of retribution that Jim had, he simply wouldn’t have been forced to consider it.

 "It strikes me that a great deal of why my brother and I serve the system and its laws is that we have been treated relatively well by it,” Sherlock admitted. "Certainly, we have often found ourselves in positions where we could easily navigate it," he said, settling back into his seat.

"You and Mycroft don't do so for the same reasons, though,” Jim stated. “He genuinely believes in the law, sees it as the stalwart of society, the scaffolding upon which power is draped. Ultimately, you're ambivalent. When the law suits you, it's fine, and when it doesn't, you pay it little mind other than to know how to twist it to fit. Frankly, I never cared. Law, like religion and economics, is woefully arbitrary. They exist because people will them to."

Sherlock shrugged in agreement. He saw an opportunity, then, to let Jim know that if he no longer wished to discuss it, Sherlock wouldn't press or coddle him. They could glide right by and the conversation changed nothing between them. “On balance, you should probably _not_ bring up how we met at parties. Though, do make sure to tell Mycroft that you think rule of law is a fictitious construct whenever you do run into him,” he scoffed, at last willing to let the entire thing drop.

Jim snorted before drawing himself up and looking snobbish, thankful for Sherlock’s reprieve from a heavy conversation threatening to become terribly overwrought soon. "People will talk," he warned flirtatiously, mouth twisting into a grin.    

"People." Sherlock scoffed in return, "People do little _but_ talk."  Jim hadn't necessitated kid gloves, certainly, but this was the mutually understood signal that they could back to verbally roughhousing with each other, as was their way. He found himself smiling slyly in return despite his efforts to remain deadpan.

"Shall I introduce myself to the elder Mr….Mr.?...Moriarty,then and explain how the whole thing came about?"  

"If you're worthy of me in the first place, that is,” Jim sniffed. “What are your intentions, Mr. Holmes?" It was fun to be like this with someone. Instead of being annoyed with the another’s presence, as he usually was, Jim found himself to be relaxed even after the difficulty of their conversation.

"Worthy?" Sherlock sneered, turning slightly towards Jim. The easy joking, and above all the acknowledgement of what was ever more plainly there rather than the mad pulling closer and then hurriedly pushing away that he and John were doing was refreshing. On some days, it seemed John would wear a look as though he wanted to tell Sherlock something but wouldn't dare. Then some days it seemed like he was determined to sleep with the entire population of female medical professionals in London. Most concerningly, on those days, Sherlock felt like an intrusion. But, here at least, Sherlock felt reasonably sure that there wasn’t anyone else on Earth who Jim would allow even this near to him apart from himself. Sherlock pressed further, a little rougher. "With your breeding, or rather lack thereof, you should feel faint with sheer disbelief at being in the presence of your betters.”

Jim turned his nose up. "Hmm, well luckily for me I have no _proper_ breeding that tells me I should faint away when in the presence of my 'betters.'" He said the last word as a question, as Sherlock rolled his eyes, muttering ‘ _please_ ’ under his breath, as Jim carried on. “Besides,” Jim leaned in close to Sherlock, “earlier, you seemed to have few qualms with my breeding, proper or otherwise.”

At that, Sherlock was startled out of any effort at even casual pretense. He whipped his head hurriedly towards Jim, more than a little shocked at his casual vulgarity.

"Stop that," Sherlock found nothing else to say as he composed himself quickly, no easy task with Jim’s near-whisper melting over his brain.  "I haven’t showered, it’s barely been an hour,” Sherlock protested, “there’s no guarantee it will even happen again. Don't tease so,” Sherlock said decisively, acutely aware of how prudish he sounded, this time without having to act.

"Teasing and anticipation are half of the fun, after all." Jim let out a big, put-upon sigh. He could sense Sherlock's discomfort, perhaps not as severe as he was letting on, but still, the last thing he wanted was his discomfort. Instead, he reclaimed his shoulder to flop on. "But since you insist, I'll play nicely to preserve what precious little virtue you have left,” Jim mock-grumbled as he settled back into Sherlock. "I've been lots of things in my lifetime, but I think this is a first for chivalrous," he murmured, recovering himself with Sherlock's Belstaff.

Satisfied that he’d not be pressured into doing something inelegant for now, Sherlock settled to accommodate Jim on his shoulder again. He took the act of 'chivalry,' as Jim had termed it, as an interesting reaction. It was a relatively small gesture of course, but Sherlock Holmes knew well not to ignore the little tells that gave away people's intentions. He couldn't help picking up on this particular signal and filing it away for later consideration, if necessary. Jim had said it himself, earlier; he was not a man to back down from something he wanted. Sherlock knew as much because he felt the same towards his own obsessive pursuits.  To think, Sherlock considered, this was Jim Moriarty pursuing something he wanted and then cheerfully ceasing at Sherlock’s word. Sherlock could well believe that this really was a first for Jim.

Still, he did not intend to write off the idea entirely. He merely still considered Jim’s very private airplane too public a place to engage in this sort of thing. "How long until we arrive?"  Sherlock asked, (very discreetly, he thought) inquiring as to when they would next have a bedroom.

Jim was warm and comfortable, Sherlock's coat serving as an excellent blanket. He didn't want to push Sherlock. Besides, sex was nothing new for Jim. Intimacy was something altogether new, and being here, quiet and under Sherlock's coat, leaning on his shoulder was more exciting and new than anything sexual he could dream up. Sherlock’s question interrupted Jim’s thought process, and he shuffled to pull out his arm and peek at his watch.

"Fifteen minutes or so and we'll be landing, then another twenty or so to the cottage. It's unfortunate we're coming at night. It's got fantastic views." He still hadn’t told Sherlock precisely where it was they were going in Ireland. Still, the question was telling in more ways than one. Sherlock was undoubtedly growing bored, and there was an underlying urgency to the question, an eagerness. For a moment, Jim thought to reply with something lascivious, but then thought better of it. Let Sherlock work for it now, let him be the one that pushed for something more than an innocent sleep, if that’s what he wanted.

Sherlock nodded, now that he’d been told they were landing soon, it was as if he’d remembered he was ready to be let out. Like a pointer dog in sight of his quarry, the news that they’d land soon made him suddenly all the more eager for them to land _now._ He was ready for another cigarette, ready to stretch his legs. The lack of activity threatened to making him itch soon, and more pressingly of all, Jim had promised to show him his home. He was eager for the wealth of information that could be derived from wherever it was that Jim called ‘home’, and Sherlock wanted nothing better than to get out and explore and prod into things he had no business in.

Sherlock had asked to be brought to the place where Jim had called home, and thus metaphorically asked him to show himself as he really was without the smoke and mirrors. Or, rather, in addition to the smoke and mirrors which they loved too much to set aside for anyone else but someone who could already see past them. Jim had become a new fascination of his and as such, Sherlock wanted to know everything, become the expert as he did in even the smallest details of the things that captivated him.

Absentmindedly, Sherlock had begun thumping his fingers against the armrest of his chair. The muscles of his arm felt tense and tight where before they’d been relaxed.Jim could tell that Sherlock was growing more and more restless as they continued. He needed something to keep him occupied. Since he’d given so much of himself in Sherlock’s questions, Jim felt little compunction about beginning his own line of inquiry.  

"How did _you_ handle being like me, like Mycroft?” Jim asked abruptly. “Clearly, I grew up and decided to be the peacock in the room. Mycroft decided to learn how to control the room without ever being seen. But, if you'll excuse the metaphor, you just decided it was all rubbish and left the party early." He looked up at Sherlock, "What was growing up like for you? I’m curious. I didn’t have the luxury of growing up surrounded by others like me."

“Well, for one thing,” Sherlock snorted. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of growing up around Mycroft as as a _luxury_ , exactly.” He unwittingly relaxed, though, as his focus shifted back to the conversation with Jim. It _was_ something of a luxury to have had a peer growing up, he had been forced to admit as much to himself earlier. “I’m not sure,” he reconsidered. “We kept to ourselves largely. Ever since I can remember, Mycroft has tried to tell me what to do. My parents travelled a great deal, Sherrinford is something of an urban legend to me. I'm not entirely convinced Mycroft hasn't utterly fabricated him just so he seems like he has an even smarter Holmes up his sleeve. I suppose, in a way, the advantage that I had was that I was largely left to my own devices,” he shrugged, unaware of how to interpret the details of his own life.

"I was the oddball and no one ever really figured out what to do with me," Jim considered. "I'm sure he was no walk in the roses to deal with, but you are lucky you had your brother. Someone to at least attempt to guide you through it. Although," he said, thinking, "I bet Mycroft was something of a golden child. Must not have been easy constantly feeling like you weren't meeting expectations, like you were growing up in his shadow," he inferred, taking a stab at the Holmes' sibling rivalry.

“Possibly,” Sherlock conceded. “I suppose I was odd for the opposite reasons you were. Mycroft was convinced I was an idiot, my mother only had Mycroft for reference so I think she had to agree. Even my father was concerned that I would take after him, he'd have readily much rather...." Sherlock paused in his ramblings as he saw what he’d always known in an utterly new light. ”Oh," he said aloud, piecing together what this new realization meant. “ _Oh.”_ He repeated, experiencing the supremely strange sensation of making a deduction about himself.  “That makes rather more sense now, doesn’t it? My father's normal, utterly normal. Boring, steady, reliable, _faithful_ , understanding of my mother's quirks and _normal._ He didn't even want either of us to be like him, because he wanted us to be like Mummy. Small wonder they left so often, all those conferences and then holidays on their own." There was after all, as he well knew, precious little room for anyone else between the genius who needed an admirer and the admirer who needed a genius. He groaned and rolled his eyes at the sudden predictability of his mother. Or, Mycroft, apparently. Even, Sherlock had to grant, his own relational patterns as of late.

Jim watched him come to a realization that he himself had come to months ago. "Genius has always liked an audience, Sherlock. I have Seb, you had John, your mother has your father, and Mycroft has Greg. It's a pattern. Instinctively, we're drawn to people who pet our pretty egos, build our self-importance.”

The plane touched down, and Jim stood up eagerly, handing Sherlock his coat. He was excited to be home again, ready to show Sherlock. He led them off the plane, grabbing his suitcase and taking them to the waiting SUV. He opened the trunk and found a matching black suitcase for Sherlock already waiting, per his instructions, packed full of clothes in the measurements Sherlock had given one of his personal assistants before leaving Paris. He tossed his own suitcase in quickly and took the keys from the man waiting for him with a brief nod. No one would be coming with them. No one other than the caretakers knew where this place was. It was a location Jim only ever traveled to alone. Well, until now. The air was cool and Jim looked up, seeing the first hint of stars he'd seen since the last time he left London, grinning at them like old friends. He opened up the driver side door and climbed in.

"Come on, then, Sherlock. Come home with me," he said with a wink.

“And where is home, exactly?” Sherlock asked dryly, looking around at the dark night. They must be miles from any city of size.

Jim grinned.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello there everyone! First off, we hope you enjoy the chapter, but more importantly, we'd like to apologize for the gap in this story. I promise, we'll never abandon it. We love it. It's just that life for the last six months or so has really gotten in the way of it. But, things seem to be coming together now, so we're hoping to get in a more consistent rhythm again. Thank you for being so patient. 
> 
> Love,
> 
> V & S

Home, it turned out, was a small hamlet named Kilfenora, County Clare. 

They still had another twenty-minute ride from where Jim’s jet had touched down in Spanish Point to his home. Driving them himself lent credence to this really being where Jim considered ‘home,’ a place where Jim wouldn’t allow himself to be followed even for his own convenience.

"You are succeeding where all others failed,” Sherlock noted lightly. “You’re not the first person to say ‘come home with me.’” 

"I've been told that I can be rather persuasive sometimes," Jim understated. It was nearly midnight, and there wasn't much to see. More was the pity. Jim missed the rolling hills, the greenery. The sandy, rocky soil of home was still where his heart took root, even after all these years. He carefully navigated the two lane road he knew with his eyes closed, as Sherlock gazed up. 

"It's private, isn't it? Intensely so. Who we were before all of this began,” Sherlock mused, as he eagerly took in the details of his surroundings.

"It is," Jim agreed. "Seems sort of like a dream, that person you used to be all that time ago. You wonder after a while if it was really you at all. If it wasn't just some other ‘you’ you made up along the way the way to making yourself over." 

Jim rolled down Sherlock's window and reached into the pocket of his own suit jacket to pull out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter, the ocean air filling the car as he continued to drive to the cottage. "Here," he said, not taking his eyes from the road. "Since you're on holiday, might as well indulge while you can."

"A beach,” Sherlock said, rather obtusely, scenting the air. If it had been anyone else that had said it, he might have rolled his eyes and stated that  _ obviously, _ there was a beach. "I haven't been to the beach in ages," he said, lighting his cigarette. They  _ would _ be going to the sea at some point. He would protest otherwise. He didn’t care if the water was to the point of producing hypothermia, this opportunity would not go wasted. 

“Well, then, we'll see to it that you go,” Jim assured. The air was cooler here than it had been in Paris, but it was May. In the bright of day, the beaches wouldn't be too cold. ”Unfortunately, they’re not the lovely beaches you find in southern France, but I suppose we'll make do. There are tide pools here. I always found those interesting as a boy. No one could convince me not to go poking around in them."

Sherlock shook his head, "Beaches in the south of France are the boring, obvious choice.”

"I suppose they are rather boring after a while. If you've seen one white sand beach, you've seen them all," Jim agreed. 

"Cold water and sudden drop offs.” Sherlock said approvingly, never taking his eyes off the scenery visible past Jim. “And, rip currents. Rip currents are more interesting. My brother dragged me out of the water once. He claims I was drowning. I wasn’t drowning. They always say you can drown in them, but I think it’s just panic that kills people and not enough quick thinking. I was in the middle of testing my thoughts on the subject when Mycroft interrupted." He nodded, silently agreeing with his younger self’s conclusions.  

Jim listened to the little kernel of information, storing it away. "Like always, your curiosity got the better of you, hmm?" He asked. He grinned wildly, peeping over at Sherlock's windblown curls, smoke curling out the window.

“I wouldn’t have drowned,” Sherlock maintained before turning to suddenly more pressing concerns, another in a growing list of demands. "Starving," Sherlock announced.

"Are you actually hungry or are you being indelicate?" Jim grinned. 

"Actually, if you’ll recall, my only intent in coming to Paris was to have dinner. Literally,” Sherlock chided. "I doubt  _ that’s  _ advisable, what with only whiskey and cigarettes to sustain us." Having been put in mind of cigarettes other than his own, he flipped open the pack to offer Jim one. "So dinner, then dinner, if you like. Take that as you will in whichever order of indelicacy you like."

"You've caught on to my dastardly plan, then. The whole of it was to drag you to Ireland so I could shag you to death, never stopping for dinner at all, constantly hungry and  _ hungry _ until your inevitable demise," Jim teased. He grabbed a cigarette from the pack, placing it in his mouth before reaching for the lighter and flicking it open with one hand. 

"I knew there was an ulterior motive. My suspicions have been confirmed,” Sherlock said, drawing himself up haughtily and puffing thoughtfully on the cigarette, even attempting to blow a smoke ring.

Jim tsked, “Oh, honey,” more like Moriarty, Consulting Criminal, in response to Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. “You should know there always is. Things are so much more...  _ scintillating _ that way _ ,  _ don't you think?" Jim cracked a smile at Sherlock's miserable attempt at smoke ring. "You are rubbish at those. It's all in the lips,” Jim remarked, taking a puff and demonstrating his own perfect little ring. “I would think you'd be talented with that particular bit of your anatomy.”

Sherlock frowned at his own inability to blow a smoke ring, particularly if Jim was going to insist on producing a perfect one like that. "Do concentrate on driving.”

“What? Would it not be ideal to be found dead in the company of one James Andrew Patrick Moriarty?”

“Terribly Irish, aren’t you?” Sherlock snapped. 

“Well, come now. William Sherlock Scott is hardly better. Frightfully English,” Jim observed.  

“Your obsession knows no bounds.”

“Matter of public record, sweetheart. Hold your friends close and your enemies, well, quite a bit closer if you’re lucky.”

At this, Sherlock rolled his eyes and did not deign to respond. He occupied himself with smoking, not for any enjoyment per se, but instead determined to show off by mastering the trick in only a few tries. "I rather like Andrew,” he said between drags. “He first followed John, then asked to see where Christ lived and decided to follow Him from then on,” he said, inspired to show off with trivia in lieu of the perfect smoke ring he was attempting to create. 

“All that ‘following John’ business seems dreadfully dull. Though there is hope for a saviour to change your mind yet," Jim teased.

Any hope of blowing smoke rings was then obliterated. Sherlock snorted and inhaled more smoke than he’d intended, only to exhale it all when he threw his head back and laughed, long and deep. "Oh, for God's sake. I've barely finished telling the story and you've already assigned yourself the main part,” he finally managed to say. 

“And,  _ Wills, _ the only reason you’re at all annoyed by it is because you’d rather reserved the part for yourself. Never fear, only one of us has a blow-by-blow of his exploits posted for the masses. Your position is still quite safe,” Jim quipped in retaliation to Sherlock’s cackling. 

" Ugh. 'Wills'..." Sherlock balked, still trying to compose himself. "I won't answer to it," Sherlock decided, scowling before making another attempt at a smoke ring only to fail again. 

"No, no, no. You're doing it altogether wrong. Imagine that you're swallowing air, right? Now fill your mouth with smoke and do it in reverse, like you recorded it and you're playing it backwards." Jim took another puff, and demonstrated, waiting for the ring to open and shooting it through the middle with a line of smoke, just for show. 

"Wills…” Sherlock repeated himself, disdainfully.

“You’ve only got yourself to blame. You’re giving me limited materials to work with. You’re hardly Irish enough for Liam. Scott’s miserably horrid for nicknames, and you already go by the most ridiculous, poncy name you’ve got.”

“Going by my name would imply, to most people, that I’d like to be called by it.” 

“I’m not interested in what you want, merely what will needle the barest edges of your temper.” Jim pulled in the driveway finally, pulling to a stop in front of the cottage. The roses out front hadn't bloomed yet, but the buds were there, promising riots of colors in only a few more weeks. The ivy crawling up the chimney was thick and green, and he could spot the yellow-orange of honeysuckle competing for space on the old worn stone.

"Your suitcase is back there," he called, walking down the path to the door. “Grab mine too, won’t you?” 

Sherlock sighed and lugged both pieces of luggage out of the back before following behind Jim down cobbled path to the cottage. It was positioned on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic and he could hear the waves battering against the rocks. Jim threw open the cheery, red door once Sherlock was behind him. It opened into a small foyer before it led into the main living space. All the walls and furniture were done in soft whites and creams, but for the fireplace which matched the outside stone. Much of the eastern facing wall, presumably facing the sea, was a sheet of glass, now inky black but promising to show brilliant views in the morning.

It was like something out of a postcard; surely Jim had had it redone if they'd been as poor as he said they'd been. If he'd had it redone, then clearly he loved his home, negative connotations be damned. He managed to follow in silence, taking in the details of the house and its interior, tossing his coat on a rack near the door and following Jim into what turned out to be the bedroom. 

  
A huge, sprawling white bed sat opposite the window and Sherlock couldn't help himself from running a hand along the comforter, needlessly thick and well made with what was clearly the high thread count Jim was so fond of mentioning. He immediately set about to opening the drawer of the nightstand to perfunctorily peer inside of it as he tossed the bags on the bed.

"You astound me. Your house is in excellent taste,” Sherlock said absently, as he found nothing of interest in the drawer and moved on to brush a finger over the wood of the table, measuring the settling of dust, or rather, the lack thereof.

Jim nodded. "My home isn't part of the act, after all," he reminded. Sherlock was touching everything, detective mind never for a moment shutting down. Jim rolled his eyes, but let him continue anyway. To do otherwise was pointless. “Alright then, before you go pilfering through the new space, what would you like for dinner? I'm in a benevolent mood, so I'm taking requests." 

"I live on carry-out. You should decide,” Sherlock said, investigating the various drawers of the dresser. “Surprise me.  _ Pleasantly _ surprise me." He kicked his shoes off and climbed onto the bed, before reaching for his suitcase and unzipping to inspect its contents. 

Jim sauntered out of the room and turned towards the kitchen. "You'll find some jumpers in there. Ireland on the sea can get a bit nippy, and once you're done poking around in my bedroom, there's something you'll really enjoy in the cupboard beside the fireplace in the living room,” he tempted.

Jim busied himself by making dinner, finding fresh salmon and a host of other ingredients. 

Sherlock scoffed, as he pawed past the jumpers determined that the temperature could well be sub-zero before he'd wear one. He’d remain perfectly happy to wrap himself tighter in his coat. He did find plentiful dress shirts in the case and thus satisfied his vanity without looking too closely further into what else he'd been packed. His inclination was to follow Jim to the kitchen and pry into what he was doing there, but the promise of ‘something he'd enjoy’ piqued his curiosity. Weighing his options, he unfolded his legs and decided in favor of the living room. He crossed the room and cracked open the cupboard to reveal a glimpse of a familiar set of curves. 

Reverently, he let the door fall open as he reached in for an obviously old but well-loved violin. The wood grain brushed coarsely over the pads of his fingers as he turned it over, much more coarsely than his own did. Old, unrefined, and branded unfamiliarly? It had been made by its owner, surely-- more fiddle than violin, even though he knew there was no real difference between the two. He had questions, as he always did, but he tucked those away for now. Instead, he set immediately to tuning it, too consumed with the joy of having found it to demand answers from Jim at the moment. 

“It was my grandfather’s. He’d be pleased someone else ever bothered to play it,” Jim called from behind him.

Sherlock began Faure's  _ Pavane _ after tuning it, moving to play in front of the unlit fireplace, but did not finish the song. After only a few bars, his attention turned from the beginnings of the piece to one of his other, favorite uses for the violin. The strains of his first selection had filled the house, but he moved a touch closer to the doorway just to be sure he’d maximally grate on Jim’s nerves as he began a very earnest  _ Danny Boy _ with a very poorly concealed smirk. 

Jim was in the middle of searing the salmon when he heard Sherlock begin the old tune. He let out a heavy sigh.  _ Typical _ . Nonetheless, it was still comforting to hear the familiar timbre of his grandfather's instrument in the walls of the old house. Sherlock was good, that much was surely true, His technical precision came through with every note, which in turn, rather ruined the song all together. 

"Oh, come now, Sherlock. Surely, the ballad of my people deserves more passion than that," he jeered, still mostly focused on dinner. "You've got to really  _ feel _ it. Then again,” he added, “that's hardly your area, is it?"

Sherlock dropped the bow to his side and glared at Jim’s back.  "If you take issue with my playing, then I should obviously practice. If you’re so determined that I should practice, you surely won’t mind my playing when inspiration strikes,” he called behind himself as he placed the violin back in its cupboard for now. “ _ Wheneve _ r inspiration strikes,” he muttered to himself. 

Stalking back into the kitchen, Sherlock stopped in the doorway still vaguely irked at the criticism one of one his favorite talents. “It’s odd,” he began in retaliation, “I can play your relative’s violin, implying we both have standard arm lengths. And yet…” he arched an eyebrow and looked long and pointedly over the length of Jim’s body.

It was Jim's turn to scowl now. "Oh, you're so droll. Please do continue on with the short jokes. They require ever so much wit." 

The food was cooking safely behind Jim. He had a moment or two to spare. He knew it could be a risk. He only had Paris to go by, but after the travel here, after the teasing and innuendo, he was willing to gamble. "So tell me, maestro,” he purred, walking closer to Sherlock, settling hand at the man's hip. "How does one begin to practice with 'feeling?' Logic would suggest that inspiration could very well be required, but surely that inspiration must be drawn from some impetus, yes?" 

He went up on his toes to brush a soft kiss to Sherlock's lips.

Sherlock’s eyes widened a fraction, imperceptibly he hoped, at Jim’s purring. He had already spent enough time in Jim’s company and was hardly obtuse enough about this sort of to miss the direction in which Jim was evidently headed. He stiffened and held himself still at the hand at his hip, but allowed himself to be kissed. Finding he did not mind, but determined to not be distracted, he huffed and pulled a concerned face, "Have I said something wrong? Here I had the impression that you  _ liked _ being reminded of just how much you have to rise up on your toes to reach me." 

Jim’s mind had left off about food or violins or criminal empires and instead had thoroughly lost itself in cataloging all the fantastic textures of skin at Sherlock's neck. "Precisely so. I'm glad to see you're learning, Mr. Holmes." he said. He released Sherlock's waist reluctantly and removing the apron. "There should be a good bottle of viognier that will go nicely with this in the refrigerator. Do uncork it and pour some glasses while I get this. Wine glasses are to the left of the sink.” He prepared the plates and by the time he'd gotten them to the table in the kitchen Sherlock had managed to pour them both a glass. He raised his glass at Sherlock, "Here's to three countries and three attempts at dinner.”

He'd poured the glasses and sat down to his meal. Whether because of the hunger that had finally caught up with him or because Jim, for some unlikely reason, counted this among his many talents, he couldn't deny that this was delicious. And metaphorically, appropriate. After raising his glass to answer the toast, he had little thought of manners and immediately set to scarfing his meal down intently. It hardly seemed as though Jim had touched his food before he was done. Of course, the demonstration of skill in this area challenged him to rise to the occasion. "I'll make breakfast tomorrow,” he announced, sipping at his wine, determine to not be out done. "Or, I'll wait until dinner and then I'll make dessert. Actual dessert, thank you." If he was gone to one-up Jim, he'd certainly do it in the largest way possible. 

Jim rolled the stem of the wine glass between his fingers. "Hmm, either seem rather promising, but I think breakfast would be agreeable." The wine was excellent. He stretched lazily and then settled back into his chair. "I do believe someone was bemoaning their lack of a shower earlier.  The one in the master suite is absolutely to die for. Or, if you prefer, I'm sure some more music wouldn't go amiss, I'll even promise to keep my more acerbic comments to myself. If you're taking requests, I've always found myself fond of Vivaldi.”

No, he wasn’t. Sherlock tilted his head a little at his wine glass as he considered. He was attempting to picture the child Jim had described earlier. Quiet, vaguely ignored, somewhat underfoot amid the going-ons of the adults that surrounded him. He tried to imagine what sort of situation might have led such a child to discover Vivaldi on his own and could not. Therefore, Sherlock concluded, he had not.

“No, you weren’t. ‘ _ Always _ found yourself.’” He repeated, honing in on the phrasing he took issue with.  “Most likely, at some point, as an adolescent, you went out and bought all the most old-fashioned records you could get your hands on. You sat down with them until you forced yourself to develop a taste for them. You anticipated having to use the familiarity with that sort of thing, the ability to make it look like your education was privileged when it wasn’t.” He flickered his gaze to Jim, a way to check for accuracy and to indulge himself in the shocked expressions he usually got in response. “Possibly to fit in at the university? A certain type of music, a certain set of languages, a certain set of mannerisms.  All the sorts of things you learn at posh schools and all meaningless and easy to learn for you.” All the sorts of things he himself had been accustomed to since birth. The sorts of things he and Mycroft had learned and then rolled their eyes at, in and of itself a form of pretension. They knew they had nothing to prove, after all.

"I suppose at one point it was useful for me to play the role. It certainly wouldn't have done me any favors at Trinity  _ not _ to be aware of what fork to use when or not to understand when posh gits.." he paused, eyeing Sherlock pointedly,  "..were pompous and pretentious enough to demonstrate how oh-so-woefully bored they were by the markers of their higher class status. Of course, all the while sniffing their noses at anyone who didn't make it their business to learn the markers of ‘proper breeding.’ All of it just so they could prove how utterly above it they were," he rolled his eyes while glancing down at the glass he still held in his hand. "It was terribly ironic how they demonstrated with such carefully, tediously practiced indifference just how much they detested those old habits, and yet how desperately they clung to them as a way to sort out 'their kind' from the general rabble. It was a  _ pleasure _ to always beat them at their own game,” he smiled sweetly at Sherlock. 

A posh git he was not; both of them knew as much for all Jim’s teasing. Of course, Sherlock himself respected none of the tedious things he had been taught and was still, at heart, very much the child who did not want to sit still or bother with which fork he was supposed to use. He lost patience far more easily with Mycroft for affecting better breeding than he ever did with Lestrade’s genuine confusion at the occasional four-syllable word. It appealed to him on some meritocratic level that an ounce of Jim’s cleverness served had served him better than generations of privileged education had served others. "Yes,” he agreed. “I’m sure that was the appeal for you; the ability to sneer at the ridiculousness of a game and yet manage to best everyone at it. I imagine you can play the part to the hilt." Still, having had both the brains and the privilege himself, he could hardly allow Jim’s needling to slide. “Though, you’re still calling it a game. Something to beat other people at, your ‘practiced’  indifference is just that, practiced. You still show your hand,” he shrugged.

Convinced of his own victory and therefore past his interest in the subject, he stood holding the back of the chair he'd sat in and nodded to himself. Regardless of the much changed circumstance, this felt like old ground between them-- Jim brashly pressed against Sherlock, a man so unused to being opposed. Jim did so while also proving himself, again, to be so achingly  _ singular _ when compared to other people. This combination had always proven to be irresistible to Sherlock, and though utterly out of his depth, he sensed it was still his turn to push back against Jim and do the unexpected. "I may have that shower now.” His voice did not waver, thankfully, but he also did not move a muscle towards the gestured bathroom, merely staring at Jim instead. 

Sherlock was him in many ways. His thoughts, reactions, and desires may have been obscured from the typical person, but just as Sherlock saw Jim, Jim saw Sherlock. Sherlock was mildly pleased with the idea of Jim being cunning and brilliant, smugly proud that Jim had managed to beat others at their own game. Then, the emotion shifted. There was a spark of desire, quickly schooled away as he thought of a way to address it without addressing it, a way to look at it sidelong and subtly hint. His hands clenched at the back of the chair, tense, possibly mildly embarrassed. He was staring at Jim blankly, silently pleading for the man to bridge the gap, to serve as a demonstration. Jim stood up, slowly walking past Sherlock, making eye contact as he began to unbutton his dress shirt. He'd already had a shower to get clean, and he was hardly going to pass on the promise of a filthy one **.**

"I'll get your back," he called over his shoulder, making his way to the bathroom leading the trail, willing Sherlock to chase after him. 


End file.
